Maleny 8 – 11 January 2008

Well Maleny turned into a 7 day stop! It is a place we love and felt relaxed and COOL! We drove in the car for two long drives through absolutely beautiful green cattle and dairy country. Not many big towns as there are quite a few big 10% and 12 % gradients on the roads to take you up and down the countryside. Glad to leave the motor home in the showground by the creek. Stopped at the Kenilworth Dairy to try some of their famous cheese – Peter didn’t think they were as good as the ones in Tassie.
The mountain views are really huge. Quadruple what you see around Jamberoo. They stretch out all directions including back to the coast and into deep distant valleys. The weather was cool and grey with heavy showers on the two day trip days with bouts of heavy mist from being in the clouds! We drove down the mountain to Nambour to pick up the mail and noticed a big increase in warmth and humidity. Very pleased to get back to our mountain retreat. Nambour is the central town with all the facilities for the district. Not overly interesting except for the many colourful trees and shrubs. We saw a magnificent old pink frangipani in a front yard that made me realise I was not in Kiama! Queensland is blessed with huge red poincianas, bright orange tulip trees, and dense deep coloured crepe myrtles, yellow blossom trees draped in brushes of blooms, lots of normal big bloom white frangipanis, red leaf mango trees and lots of dahlias in big bright colours.
Back in Maleny we have enjoyed the atmosphere in the town which had quite a bit of live music. The local co-op café is very community spirited and full of life. We went into listen to the music and were entertained by an enthusiastic local, Evan, who was enjoying the young music and desperate to dance asking all the girls! He was 86, (recently widowed and missing his wife), who was immaculately dressed with a bright red hand knitted vest. He managed to get someone up to dance and you could only admire his big happy beaming face and his dancing ability - much better than ours! The “informant” said he was a regular! Our friend Judy will appreciate that we thought of her happy Dad, Ron, who is was buried this week whilst we watched this fellow.
We visited a dairy and Peter bought a litre of non homogenised Guernsey milk with thick clotted cream on the top that prevented you from pouring it! Oh well, back to the Lite White!
Settled back for a quiet catch up day on Saturday before going out to see the movie “Up the Yangtze”, only to find that it was booked out!!
Back to the sound of water of the creek! One week of it! The sound is permanently etched in now! Hopefully easily remembered when one wants to dream of such things! Our heads are full of great resources for relaxation sessions!