Gorgeous Gympie

I have come to Gympie to turn around and make my way down the part of Queensland that does not involve L.A type roads systems...over passes and underpasses and incomprehensible three lane, roundabouts, all packed with traffic travelling very fast. The roads from Brisbane up the Sunshine coast are beautiful but extraordinarily difficult to navigate due to incomprehensible road signs, counterintuitive directions and inability to turn around should a wrong direction be taken. I knew I was not up to the challenge of returning the same way I came.

So, I have made my way via three very simple (old school) roundabouts and quite a considerable stretch of (old school) highway, quite a long way up the Queensland hinterland in order to go back to Victoria. That said, this particular drive is lovely, up a range and through warm temperate rain forests and farmland, hosting in places, golden cows who gleam with health and seem to be well pastured. There are also white herds which I think owe a little to the Brahmin and look exotic in these treed paddocks with singular mountain peaks standing out from unique grey green which colours Australia`s distant ranges.

Its midday day when I reach Gympie. I have been here before but have forgotten the unique geography of the town, old paint faded Queenslanders stretched across hills circling, the city centre which feels enclosed as it narrows to one lane of traffic. The city heart also feels established but there are many vacant shops. There is also a preponderance of two-dollar shops, op shops, Indian apparel shops and a several large vaping and tobacconist stores. Coffee shops and cafes have eclectic menus and are well patronised. I feel a poor hippie vibe as opposed to the affluent hippie vibe of Byron Bay for example and can imagine living here and finding creative things to do.

It is warm, very warm and there is more than a touch of the tropical. There is high humidity, and the cool of the eclectic bookstore I find to top up my reading matter, is welcome. The bookseller and I exchange travel stories of the far north before I make my way to the art gallery. This occupies an imposing site in the town and is an imposing building, but it is unfortunately shut. I must therefore make do with the other creative hub of the town, a large shopping mall almost adjacent. Mentally stimulating, not.

My motel is on the highway out of town and owned by a lovely woman whose pride in her premises shows in the gleaming cleanliness of the rooms, the perfect small touches just where they are needed and the frighteningly orderly storeroom, I catch sight of as I pass by. The only blight to an otherwise gorgeous respite is the sound of the trucks as they thunder past on the highway. Big trucks moving freight around this vast country. They are on the move and there are many of them. All night!