At the southern end of the base of the building known as Mt. Tambourine in the Gold Coast hinterland is the town of Canungra, which has that almost indefinable charm of a place that is not quite alpine, but should be. It sits on the edge of a mountain range that leads to some of those miles of wide plains that Dorathea McKellar told us about.
In fact, the area cannot be described as sunburned, there are too many pines and stallions in the area. Just as an aside, isn’t it interesting that horse stallions and shaking parks for spoiled racing cattle? .
Is this part of the horse romance or a commercial ploy by the establishment to advertise that the place is first class or perhaps I have answered the question from my own observation?
Horses are worth so much and they love to run, so much so that they need dazzling white fences so as not to hurt themselves in a fit of sheer euphoria knowing they are valuable or love to run. Who knows, I certainly don’t. A horse is a unique creature in that it has been blessed with so much confidence in its own horse that when a rider like me clumsily climbs aboard. Then I confirm my incompetence by saying something stupid like dizziness. Ed the ‘almost talking horse’ just turns his head, looks at me sinisterly, and throws thought messages that say ‘you have got to be kidding me, I’m a proud member of the equine race and you sad little human are out of shape to honor my back, so I’ll stay here until someone in authority comes. ‘ This is what always happens, honestly, it’s my thing with horses and I swear it’s true.
Canungra is at the head of a valley that was home to many of these horse establishments and I, for my part, do not stop to chat. The valley is certainly worth the short drive through the foothills of the Gold Coast interior.
The path leads to places with such exotic names as Biddabbadda, which is fine of course, but you have to slow down to read the Bida bbb sign ……… whaaaat. Anyway, the place, Biddabbadda, is kind of a mini bush valley that offers a short drive and joins the road to Beaudesert again after a couple of miles.
Here, for the first time since we left the dazzling Gold Coast, we are entering the bastion of the oldest farms with the rusty implements strewn across the home meadow where I suppose they blew your mind. Instead of moving them, mother earth will swallow them for the next two years.
Not too much change in some places, although I hope a lot of those abandoned farm implements end up rusting or worse, painted and placed in embarrassing grandeur in the front yard of someone who lives in a housing development in Whoop Whoop next to the sea.
A few kilometers further on we come to Beaudesert, a charming little town situated on the Scenic Rim, which is also what the City Council calls itself.
The name derives from the region’s original volcano and, as we know from further south, this entire terrain is dominated by construction and then cataclysmic destruction from the great Mount Warning boom some twenty-four million years ago.
Beaudesert follows a historical path similar to that of other cities in the region, the original inhabitants moved or were forced to do so, timber was sought as a cash crop, and the clearing of the forest led herders to settle in the area.
In Beaudesert’s case, a thriving pig industry was natural for local conditions, but eventually cows won the hearts and wallets of local farmers and dairy products became the predominant product.
Interestingly, Beaudesert, for some reason, boomed during the great depression of the last century and I assume this was due to resource sharing and the degree of business change in the district. I couldn’t determine why a place like that that revels in rural riches should be called whatever it has a desert, so I might write some nonsense, nothing new, as some may say, about the French Foreign Legion, Deserts Forts and a guy named Beau Geste from PC Wren, funny what comes to mind as I travel.
When you leave Beaudesert, you will find an interesting road trip of about thirty kilometers to the picturesque town of Boonah, whose residents have recently fought and won against a government plan to dam their local river, as they are in the catchment area of the river. Logan. Water captured within the confines of the catchment area would primarily benefit people in the most densely coastal areas.
The watercourse involved was Teviott Creek and the city was greatly relieved that the dam did not come to fruition. However, it sounds like NIMBY-ism, as Boonah is well supplied with water from the Moogerah Dam, about ten miles southwest of the city.
We will visit it next on the way to Cunninghams Gap later on and overlooking the Fassifern valley, it should give the scooter a good workout as it is spectacularly steep and I will post some photos from the top, before “going down, head on down the road “as Michael Jackson sang on The Wiz.
If you like ‘Where’s Roger’ (or if you don’t and want to annoy someone), why don’t you watch this episode?
www.ozscootersdirect.com.au