The Mary Valley

 Yesterday was our 45th wedding anniversary. Since it occurred on a Sunday we decided to celebrate with a home-cooked meal but in addition, we decided to get away from it all with a two-night stay in Maleny which is about an hour's drive north of Brisbane.

The souffles that Marianne made for dessert. Delicious! We had scallops from the bay for starters and puff pastry blobs from a butcher that had some chicken cordon bleu mixture inside. The scallops were wonderful, but the blobs needed help.

We could have taken the main highway for most of the journey but Marianne requested that we avoid it as much as possible. After a little thought, I decided we could follow the Mary Valley for most of the way.

Since I was hoping to follow the river from mouth to source, we first drove down to the mouth of the Mary at River Heads, about five miles south of where we live. The ferry to Fraser Island leaves from here.

The mouth is at the right.

Most peopl from Queensland and New South Wales will recognize these. They are flowers from Jacaranda trees which are very popular here.

The trees flower in Maryborough during October and each year, somebody will pin a flower to the blackboard in each classroom to indicate that it is time to start studying for the end of year exams. When the red/orange flower from a Poinciana appears, it is too late and exams will begin. The Jacarandah originated in Latin America and the Poinciana in Madagascar.

War Memorial.

The old Banyan tree is still on the go. It appears that they originated in Asia.

The Mary River, named after Lady Mary Lennox, wife of the then Governor of New South Wales. The indigenous name is Moocooboola. The river floods every now and then. I remember my father taking me down to this spot in 1955. The water was almost up to the fence in the foreground.

There used to be wharves beside the train tracks and they have now been replaced by trees. Many immigrants landed here in Maryborough.

The traditional photo with the cannon.

Post Office tower with Jacaranda tree.

To the right is the pathway we would follow to go to the old swimming pool.

The statue is of Captain Duncan Chapman, the first Aussie soldier to step ashore at Gallipoli.

Since I am a mad romantic fool, I presented Marianne with one of these flowers.

We proceeded south using a back road. This is Mount Bauple which is the center of the area where Macadamia nuts originated.

The bridge over the Mary River at Tiaro. It usually submerges during a flood.

The train station at Amamoor. The Mary Valley Rattler terminates here.

The shop that sells eveything. The temperature was about 90 so we each had a cooling lime milkshake. And no, Robin, we did not share. We had one each.

The station.

Virtually every farm property had a jacarandah tree.

At the top of the distant ridge is Maleny and the source of the Mary River.

The Mary at Conondale. It was much wider than I expected, but there was vistually no flow of water.

To our great surprise, an Airedale Terrier appeared. The lady looking after her said her name was Phoebe.

The lady had a couple of other friendly dogs as well, but we love Airedales.

A short while later, we climbed a hill and found our accomodation. This was the view from our balcony. The mountains you can see were named by Captain Cook back in 1770 as the Glass House Mountains since they reminded him of glass furnaces back in Yorkshire.

Mt Beerwah is the highest at 1824 feet.

Crook Neck which is popular with climbers but is now closed to climbing because of numerous falls. My father said he climbed it with friends when he was at university.

Tibrogargen which is easily visible from the train line and old highway to Brisbane. The other side of the mountain looks like the face of an ape.

It's quite a view.

Our room was the largest I have stayed in for quite some time.

It was a lovely drive down quiet roads with plenty of scenery. Except for aa few miles near Gympie we were able to avoid the main highway with all the trucks and traffic.