Day 37
Left Southport this morning and headed into the Moutains.
Shirley was being an irritating bitch so I turned her off.
In hindsight this wasn’t a great idea as quite simply I had no idea where I was
going. Reluctantly I turned her back on and she finally decided not to be quite
so moody.
For those of you who don’t know, Shirley is my GPS.
So headed to a place called Tambourine National Park. It’s
incredibly close to the coast and very high. As you can imagine, the climb to
get there was quite steep. Matilda did struggle a bit but with 28 cars behind
us, she was under a bit of pressure. Finally we got to the town and I pulled
over. I had a walk along the main road of the town, strangely called North
Tambourine. The road is full of galleries, fudge shops and gifts shops. I
actually lost count, but the shop that got my attention the most was a rather
impressive German style chalet set back from the road.
I wondered inside to be confronted by probably 12,000 cuckoo
clocks. The shop was empty except for the two owners who sat behind the
counter. As I walked in, one of them simply said “just on time”. I thought this
was some kind of sick clock joke, but no less than 15 seconds later, every
single one of the cuckoo clocks started cuckooing and chiming and generally
making a racket. It was quite deafening, yet strangely transfixing.
Some of the clocks were very traditional with the cuckoo
coming out of the top. Others had little scenes that moved, wood cutters and
maids milking cows. Several even had waterfalls with real water. The larger
clocks were at the top, and when they chimed, the cuckoo, probably as big as my
fist, threw itself out and made a low groaning noise. It was actually very
entertaining and I couldn’t help but smile.
Slowly, one by one, the cuckoos returned to their holes and
they fell silent one by one. One clock did a last cuckoo and then they all fell
silent, except for the ticking; none of which was in time and would have driven
me mental. The shop assistant arrived next to me and said “impressive, hey?” in
a strangely American accent. I at least expected Australian is not German.
Either way, he talked to me about the cuckoo clocks and told me how they all
worked, opened one up and showed me the mechanism and then gave me a tour of
the rest of the shop. It was vast. Once out of the first room, there were
grandfather clocks small and big, some going up to the ceiling. He made some of
them chime and I caught a glimpse of the tallest clock, a snippet at $48,000...
about £30,000. Cheap I suppose.
So he left me to browse and I bought a tiny little wind up
music box. I wish I could have bought a cuckoo clock, but the idea of carrying
it around with me and it only getting broken annoyed me. He gave me their web
address and told me that they could ship anywhere in the world. Yes, I would
buy one when I was home... that’ll wind the family up. Brilliant.
I didn’t have anywhere booked for that night, so headed to a
small campsite just on the outskirts of the national park and pulled up. The
caretaker took my $15 and pointed to some trees for the power. I don’t have a
very long cable so I couldn’t park very far away, but there was only two other
tents on the site, so I knew I’d have a nice night. It was pitch black, and I
mean bitch black. I nipped out for a wee at about 3am (no bottles left) and as
I opened the door, a possum ran past the camper. I decided against the walk to
the toilet block and so stood on the step and did it like only a man knows how.
Tomorrow, I’d be heading into Brisbane city, so the peace
and quiet was quite welcome for one night, but I did get the feeling I was in
the middle of nowhere.
So until tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment