Road Trip Continued: Of Ghosts and Bunyips

Memerambie is a little town north of Kingaroy on the Bunya Highway, once the home of 'the fastest man in the world', Arthur Postle, The Crimson Flash.  These days it is more famous for The Stop Shop.
This is not your average only-shop-in-town experience.  While it does stock the basic groceries one needs in emergencies, the first thing you notice when you walk in is the aroma.  This place is full of spices, curries (all bought in bulk by the owner and packaged himself) and other exotic foods.

I presume Kingaroy locals would drive there to stock up.  Actually, the one thing I wanted was local honey, but he was sold out, so I ended up with curried peanuts instead.  They were delicious.

We asked him about the large number of empty new brick homes in the centre of town and he told us the following sad tale of this ghost town.

Once upon a time, a developer convinced the South Burnett Regional Council to give him approval to build the houses on his new estate before the water, sewerage, power, roads and drainage were in place.  Then he went bust. The result is 53 homes at lock-up stage, which the owners are unable to occupy.  They are paying rates on the land only because it is considered 'undeveloped'. 

Next stop Wondai, whose notable citizens include Carl Rackemann who took the catch that won Queensland its first Sheffield Shield, Chad Morgan, The Sheik of Scrubby Creek, and champion pacer Wondai's Mate. We stopped briefly at Vinnie's so I could duck in and buy the Arsenal lampshade, then found a nice creekside park just north of town for morning teas. Then it was on to Murgon, which has a great art deco Public Hall.

The ladies at the Blue Care op shop were lovely, but we couldn't find anything there that we wanted to buy so we headed northwards again, whizzing past Ban Ban Springs, which never changes, and reaching our next targets in Gayndah.  

First stop was the Gunther Village shop, which initially looked promising.  Now I am all for clutter, but this place was a bit of a nightmare when it came to looking for clothes.  There was no attempt to separate anything into size, style, colour, whatever; and they had a lot of stock so it was hard to look through the racks.  I did manage to find a top there that would be acceptable with a skirt I bought in Kingaroy so that was one tick for Gunther Village.  This was the only shop we visited that still calls dresses 'frocks'. How quaint.  The much bigger Lifeline was just down the road and it was there that I found an acceptable 100% cotton brunch coat make me decent at the hotel at Monto that night.

With our shopping done, we pondered the local lunch options, deciding on the Bakery. When you order your food, your table number is in a little orange. How very Gayndah!  
Next, to inspect the facilities. I wish to report that Gayndah has one of the prettiest little public toilets you will ever see. It nestles under the big trees up the side street that has the NAB on the corner.  Finally, a quick trip in to Mellors drapery to see the only operating flying fox change dispenser in Queensland.  The nice woman demonstrated it for me.
Onwards to Mundubbera, past the landmark bimble box tree and straight to the Anglican op shop in the main street, where one of the lovely women serving there knew my friend Georgina's mum. I bought a travel trivia game. The other op shop was closed. Jan and I then posed for this photo as our husbands first met there working for Telecom in the 1970s.

I had a little problem all day.  Ever since I had spinal surgery years ago, I have used a back support frame while driving.  It is extremely comfortable. However, my newly acquired shorts had buttons on the back pockets that were deeply attracted to the frame. As a result, every time I got out of the car, the frame came too. The girls thought this was funny. I didn't.

We thought it was non-stop from here to Monto, with trivia questions from the game keeping the driver alert, but at Mulgildie we discovered this bunyip.  He has his own painted backdrop, a lungfish under one arm, and eyes made of motorbike taillights. We wondered if they light up at night? 
He faces the pub. Imagine if you had had a drink or three too many and as you stumbled outside, a passing car's headlights lit up this thing!
There is a local pond called the Bunyip Hole where legend has it the bunyip lives. The locals say you never swim there because you can be dragged under and just disappear.