Having revived ourselves with caffeine, we left Blackbutt and drove down the range, through the intriguing little town of Moore and on to Toogoolawah. Although the op shop was shut, and we were too early for the town's jacarandas, we did a quick run through town so I could show the others the red back spider on the roof of the local community radio station. I think it needs to be better publicised as one of Toogoolawah's tourist attractions. There are matching spider shaped seats on the lawn.
Then on to the lovely caravan park at Esk that nestles below the mountain overlooking the town. One this we hadn't counted on were the mozzies that swarmed at sunset. There was also a problem with the park not supplying the extra bedding we required for the trundle bed in our cabin, but we managed. We had planned to have a pub dinner but the nearest one was closed for renovation and we didn't fancy the walk in the dark to the farther one, so we grazed on the snack food we still had. Jan had bought a wonderful colander during the day with words instead of normal holes, so I used it to unleash my inner Pastafarian (between mozzie slaps).
Esk used to have three op shops but the Blue Care one closed in 2015. We chose the cafe next to Vinnies for breakfast, so that one couldn't close without us noticing. The cafe had a Kransky Sisters signed tea towel on the wall, so Esk's most famous daughters had been there in the past. We ate breakfast accompanied by a blue-faced honey-eater who was tucking into the leftovers on the next table, and then Vinnes opened its door. It is a small, cramped shop, but it had good things and there I found my buy of the trip, a tall, heavy glass LSA International vase, that really pleases me. While I was sitting outside waiting for the others, I googled it out of curiosity and found one for sale online for £20. I paid $5 for mine.
We resisted the lure of the amazing Esk antique shop, waved to Elvis who was standing on the back of a truck in the main street and headed for the Helping Hands shop which is hidden down a side street. It consists of two huge tin sheds, one containing furniture and large stuff and the other everything else. It is the only op shop I have even been in that has a large yellow plane hanging from the ceiling. The clothes were really cheap, and here Jan finally succeeded in her search for huckaback tablecloths for a friend. The furniture in the other shed was more pricey, but we found one of the most beautiful objects of the whole trip here. It will set you back $1000.
The Lifeline at Murgon was packed with stuff, although none of the clothes I tried on fitted me. Then it was across the road to the smaller Blue Nurses shop, again with no luck. The snack bar next door was advertising sweet potato scallops but Jo wouldn't let me buy one. Hopefully Wondai would be better.
Vinnes there wasn't for me, so while Jo and Jan were trying on things, I popped down the road to Wondai's wonderful Collectibles shop. Here you can buy a ticket to the Beatles Festival Hall concert in Melbourne, or a Beatles powder compact for $850. Oh for $850 dollars to spare. Another treasure was a 1960s Coke can for $85.
However, the big find for me was one of those slider games that used to come in our show bags in the 1960s. You have to slide the numbers into the correct order with only one spare space available. My brother and I used to have races to see who could complete theirs first. I brought it home and gave it to Peter, but not before I solved it myself first, and then jumbled it up again.
Kingaroy was next, where we did their most excellent Vinnies (I bought enamel earrings) and the two big shops in the main street, Lifeline and the Salvos from memory. We all have our favourite items that can be found in every op shop, such as knitting needles (Jo), and food steamers (me). The trend we noticed on this trip is that just about every op shop carries at least one Irish Coffee glass. Here's a pair from Kingaroy.
After lunch in a cafe, it was on to Nanango, which has a spotless Endeavour shop on one side of the main street and a crazy Community op shop on the other. This was crammed with stuff, and staffed by an extremely happy woman who turned up the radio whenever something good came one. I was grooving in the dressing room. We declared this the friendliest shop of our trip. It also contained my absolutely favourite misspelt sign of the whole journey.
I had a boyfriend once who said in his lifetime, he wished to eat a banana in Banana and a mango in Nanango. This is for you, Andrew! (I have already done the banana, about five years ago.)
Next stop Yarraman which has a small Vinnies where I found a long patchwork skirt and a second pair of brand-new shoes. The Red Cross at Blackbutt was the last shop for the day as we realised we would not make it to Toogoolawah before closing time. The bakery is directly across the road so we popped in for a relaxing coffee. It would have the best cabinet full of sweeties I have seen outside Melbourne. And there's a nice gallery right next door.
From Ban Ban Springs (where nothing ever seems to change), we headed south, for the first time revisiting the route we took on our first road trip two years ago, only this time in the reverse direction. We had a good run, except for the small red car that slowed us down north of Goomeri. We seemed to attract small red cars on this trip.
Our accommodation in Goomeri was in a three-bed room in the art deco Grand Hotel. When we checked in, there was some confusion as to whether we had been overcharged or not, but the girl behind the bar decided to refund some of our money anyway. Jo asked about the WiFi password, only to be told that the owner will reveal it to no-one. Not impressed, Dusty Joe.
Jo and I had wagyu rissoles for dinner, which were delicious, but Jan's calamari was somewhat lacking in the flavour department. After dinner, we retreated upstairs, where needle, thread and button all came together to make my Day One skirt wearable.
We had already put our freezer bricks in the communal fridge, but didn't want to leave our food and drink in there, in case someone decided to help themselves. I found a large container of crushed ice in the freezer, and located a takeaway food container in the cupboard which would hold quite a bit of it and keep the esky cool, but Jo had other ideas. After a beer or three, a shower cap seems like an ideal ice container (before it thaws). She insisted I fill it with ice, which she promptly dropped all over the carpet. We then played drunken Pictionary.
In the morning I had a photographic stroll around town. I found the old railway station and inspected the famous Emporium, but, sadly, it would not open till 9, so I will have to explore inside another time. The other great shop in Goomeri, CheeseWorld, has sadly been closed for a while, so I didn't get to satisfy my craving for interesting cheese. I did find some local honey at the garage.
Goomeri has no op-shops, and we hadn't been inside one since Childers, so we packed the car and headed for Murgon, where our op-shop journeys began in 2014.
(This is Jan on one of her Day One outfits.)
The further we headed away from the coast, the more the country changed, through scrubby bush to more open grazing land, until beautiful Mount Walsh loomed up on the horizon, indicating that Biggenden was close.
Our research indicated that there was only one op-shop in town, Lifeline, and that it was in the main street. We drove up and down and couldn't spot it. There was, however, a new/second-hand shop called Jeni's Treasures that was close to the spot. Jeni informed us that the Lifeline authorities had recently closed the Biggenden store because it wasn't making enough money. ''I told them it was a mistake", she said. Too right! It was the attraction that had brought us to Biggenden (oh, all right; and the beer).
There is another drawcard, however. On our way into town, we had passed a house with the most beautiful (and large) rose garden. Along the main street were many more roses, all in bloom. And there was also a rather startling piece of street artwork, in the shape of a giant metal (rusty) rose. It turned out we had just missed the annual Biggenden Rose Festival.
Anyway, Jeni had no treasures for me (Jan found something), and the girls needed that beer. So off to the Grand we went, where the beer was cold (so was my G&T), and on the wall was mounted the biggest mud crab I have ever seen, caught by a local in 1983.
We then continued west towards Ban Ban Springs, commenting that sadly Biggenden seems to be a town in decline. If you can't support a single op-shop, you must be in trouble.
There were many Hervey Bay op-shops still to be explored, but we had to leave, as this was our longest driving day. Our lunch stop was Howard where they have cute little metal boxes featuring local historical figures as their street planter pots. There's also a fine-looking pub, but we didn't go in.
I bought an excellent pie from the bakery, which looks small and unassuming, but is actually quite large and bustling inside. Sort of a TARDIS bakery. Jan and Jo bought ginormous burgers from the takeaway next door. There is some fabulous tack for sale in there!
Howard has one op-shop, run by BBS, the Burrum Benevolent Society, and it is a good one, with reasonable prices. I bought two pairs of earrings for 50c each, one of which is a pair of tiny silver mice. We would have stayed there longer, but they were closing early for a committee meeting.
Off to Childers, our most northerly stop, with Vinnie's the first stop in that beautiful main street. Quite nice, but nothing for me. Then we headed off over the road looking for the Salvation Army shop, which we knew was there somewhere, but it was rather hard to find.
In the end, it turned out to be behind the lovely RSL building, and it was worth looking for. It is much bigger than Vinnies and all the clothing hangers are colour-coded according to size. Among other goodies, Jo found a vintage coffee pot, Jan picked up a witch's hat for her entry in the Mary Valley scarecrow competition, and I bought my future grandchild's first ever op-shop item, a sweet little yellow Pooh shirt.
The girls were dying for a cold beer but we were worried we wouldn't get to Biggenden in time to dive into the Lifeline there, so down the Isis Highway we headed, after I had photographed some Childers footpath artwork.
This is an op-shop like no other! It is an L-shaped complex of buildings, featuring quite a bit of pink paint. There's a lot more inside! We walked into a kind of Wonderland, divided off into lots of little rooms.
The first one I entered I called the Beach Room. The colour scheme was blue, and it contained swimwear, thongs, shells, bric-a-brac with nautical designs, sunhats, sarongs, shorts etc.
Next door was the Animal Room. The colour scheme here was black, white and brown, and in there you find anything with an animal print, not to mention a token metal kangaroo.
It was hard to give a name to the third room. The Party Room? Colour scheme, red, black and pink. This is where you will find anything with sequins or feathers. Also masks, and mirrors.
Alongside the Party Room was the Craft Room. I have never seen a better selection of craft items in any op-shop. It was here I found needles and thread, so I could sew on that button that I picked up in Maryborough.
The big front room is the Wedding Room. Usually wedding dresses in op-shops look sad and unloved. Not these. The pink colour in here was much softer, and there were a lot of white flowers. Behind where I stood to take the photo were flowergirl and ring-bearer outfits that were available for hire. I could see that this would be a place to visit if you were a bride on a budget.
I didn't photograph the two big rooms in the middle that contained the general men's and women's clothes and accessories, but off to one side of that was the Manchester Room. Again, all neat and beautifully organised.
Next is the book room, a rabbit warren of interesting reading matter. They had a large selection of of very old books, plus a special shelf for their Fifty Shades collection. Mind you, these wouldn't have been out of place in the Party Room. Sadly, their signage was full of redundant apostrophes.
There is one more room which is actually a shipping container, that holds the Vintage collection. It is hot in there, and some of the stuff is rather over-priced.
Between the main building and the next is a large covered area containing furniture, and then you step into the Bric-a-Brac Shed. It is huge, and there is another Furniture Room off to one side. But wait, there's more. Beyond that is the Rock and Roll coffee shop! They claim to make excellent coffee, but we can't verify that.
It appears that Lavelles is actually privately owned, but funds raised go to the Hervey Bay Wildlife Warriors.
Anyway, if you are in Scarness, DO NOT MISS IT.
It was a beautiful morning in Urangan as we headed for the marina for coffee and batteries. As is usual in tourist areas, the batteries were about twice the supermarket price. At the entrance to the complex, we found the front half of a whale.
The coffee was slow to arrive, but this gave us a chance to watch the whale watching expeditions embark. The front of the big boat was packed with eager travellers, sure they would not miss a thing and destined to be seriously sunburnt that night. All the sensible people were inside.
There are so many op-shops in Hervey Bay that it was hard to choose where to start, but we chose well. It is called Treasure Cove and supports the Hervey Bay Disability Association. As well as having the distinction of being one of the rare op-shops Jo has never visited, it is situated in Elizabeth Street opposite the beautiful botanic gardens, which are well worth a look. It was also having 'Dollar Day'!
Among the treasure within were a pair of gorilla slippers - sadly too small for me - and some interesting spelling. What I first thought was a random apostrophe was another customer's question mark.
I bought two items which totalled all of $1.50, then we headed along the waterfront (much beautified since I was last in Hervey Bay) to Pialba, op-shop-central. Here we found the bottom half of the whale.
Our first port of call was the Salvos, which is a huge shop, with so much to look at. I found a brand new pair of shoes which I wore for the next two days. One of the best things about this shop, besides the friendliness of the staff, was the soundtrack. They were playing ABBA Gold. As a result, all the customers were singing along while they shopped. This was in sharp contrast to the dire music we had suffered in the Salvos at Maryborough. They did have a punctuation problem, but the signs were consistent throughout.
We next visited the well hidden 'Anglican Thrift Market', also with friendly, helpful staff. We told them about our journey, and as she was leaving, a customer said to me 'Are you on the Op Shop Road Trip?' Yes. 'Have you been to Lavelle's? It's further down Torquay Road, on the corner of Zephyr Street'. So off we went...
After we morning tea, we headed for Gympie's least-known op shop, the Salvos, which is at 42 Stumm Road, Southside, well away from everything. It is quite a good one. I tried on a Maggie T top there which was my size but didn't suit me :-( Jo, on the other hand, bought a complete dinner set.
At this point, it becomes relevant that Jan and John and their son Tim are building a house at Kingfisher Bay. Just after we'd left Imbil, the first phone call came in from the plumber. He needed to book the barge and the barge booking person wasn't answering her phone or returning messages. This meant Jan spent most of the morning not relaxing, but on the phone, or on speaker phone while we drove along. When we reached Tiaro, she called the plumber again, as she had actually brought some materials to deliver to him at home in Tinana.
Meanwhile, we inspected Hippie Garage - not an op shop but it has some interesting stuff - and considered morning tea at the Tiaro Cafe. On second thoughts...no.
Do you know that on that stretch of the Bruce Highway, there are trivia question on billboards to keep drivers awake? Q. What is the longest river in Queensland? On to Tinana, while learning more about the difficulties of building on an island. More phone calls to and between plumber and builder, delivery of the hardware, and finally we could head for Maryborough and food. After a quick lunch at the local shopping centre, we headed for the Salvos. It is a small shop, but they had CDs for half price. Judging by the one they were playing (Perry Como's tone deaf cousin perhaps?) they would have been better off just giving them away.
Vinnies was next and it was much better, although their clothes were all over the place. They had a lot of good bric-a-brac and furniture, and a large statue of St Vincent gazing benevolently down on the customers. I needed a button for a skirt I had bought earlier and found it there.
Back at Kingfisher Bay, the calls continued off and on for the next three days. Jan would go pale when she saw the plumber's number pop up on the display. It turned out the woman who was not answering the phone, and who the resort declared was definitely on duty, was actually on annual leave that day. Eventually the workers made it to Fraser, their accommodation worked out, and they were able to get onto barges back to the mainland.
Meanwhile, the travellers headed for the coast, and the cabin we had booked at Urangan. It was perfect (apart from the scary ladder to the top bunk) and literally metres from the boat club, where we had a most pleasant dinner. This is the outfit I wore.
Many good clothing purchases had been made, but as we were posing for the fashion show, my camera batteries ran out. I dived into the camera bag, which I had brought only because it contained spare batteries, to discover that I had used them for something else.
We voted Vinnies at Gympie the best shop of the day; the Little Shop of Horrors was the worst. My total spend for the day was $34.50.
A.The Flinders River.
I headed off on Op Shop Road Trip No 3 by leaving home on Sunday afternoon and heading for Jan's home at Carters Ridge (look it up). Of the three routes I could have taken, it turned out I picked the only road that wasn't blocked. At Jan's the sky was buzzing with helicopters, because a controlled burn on their neighbour's property was no longer under control. One chopper landed at the top of their hill, where the fire had burned up to the boundary fence. We heard later that one of the fire trucks was lost when it rolled down a hill, presumably because the handbrake was off.
Anyway, all was clear the next morning when we loaded up the car. On the first trip, we took Jo's sedan; on the second trip my Forester station wagon, and now Jan's Ford Ranger. Will we need a truck next year?
We collected Jo at Imbil and headed to Gympie. First stop was the excellent Vinnies at Gympie (where I bought my first items of clothing for the trip), then Endeavour, followed by the Little Shop of Hope, which we immediately renamed the Little Shop of Horrors. The woman in charge of this very crowded, disorganised little charity shop walked out as we walked in, leaving it in the hands of a man who didn't have a clue. When Jan wanted to buy something, he panicked, ran next door, where they were unable to leave to help him, then roamed down the street calling 'Chris! Chris!'
Eventually Jan left him an amount of money that she assured him was correct and then we fled. It was time for morning tea, so we patronised the wonderful Farmer and Sun coffee shop/produce market at Southside, which I definitely recommend.
Then on to the lovely caravan park at Esk that nestles below the mountain overlooking the town. One this we hadn't counted on were the mozzies that swarmed at sunset. There was also a problem with the park not supplying the extra bedding we required for the trundle bed in our cabin, but we managed. We had planned to have a pub dinner but the nearest one was closed for renovation and we didn't fancy the walk in the dark to the farther one, so we grazed on the snack food we still had. Jan had bought a wonderful colander during the day with words instead of normal holes, so I used it to unleash my inner Pastafarian (between mozzie slaps).
Esk used to have three op shops but the Blue Care one closed in 2015. We chose the cafe next to Vinnies for breakfast, so that one couldn't close without us noticing. The cafe had a Kransky Sisters signed tea towel on the wall, so Esk's most famous daughters had been there in the past. We ate breakfast accompanied by a blue-faced honey-eater who was tucking into the leftovers on the next table, and then Vinnes opened its door. It is a small, cramped shop, but it had good things and there I found my buy of the trip, a tall, heavy glass LSA International vase, that really pleases me. While I was sitting outside waiting for the others, I googled it out of curiosity and found one for sale online for £20. I paid $5 for mine.
We resisted the lure of the amazing Esk antique shop, waved to Elvis who was standing on the back of a truck in the main street and headed for the Helping Hands shop which is hidden down a side street. It consists of two huge tin sheds, one containing furniture and large stuff and the other everything else. It is the only op shop I have even been in that has a large yellow plane hanging from the ceiling. The clothes were really cheap, and here Jan finally succeeded in her search for huckaback tablecloths for a friend. The furniture in the other shed was more pricey, but we found one of the most beautiful objects of the whole trip here. It will set you back $1000.
