Ghost ship & Mountain Villages

---

After spending noisy nights with raucous roosters, we spent a night in the foreshore reserve carpark, as we had heard that a mysterious ghost ship had washed up on Brunsy Beach, (see newspaper photo). So sun breaking over crystal blue sea horizon, Bilbo and Basho went for a little foray up the beach, in search of the ghost ship, not to be sighted. So here is the mystery, the yacht "Scotch Bonnett" left New Zealand, last November and ran into a wild storm in the Tasman Sea, the yacht was demasted, subsequently the occupants put out a mayday distress call, and were winched off the yacht by a rescue chopper.

The abandoned vessel drifted aimlessly for a month in the Tasman, before it was sighted by a passing cruise ship the "Sun Princess", which searched the vessel, but found no one on board, the ship then requested permission from the rescue coordination centre to abandon the boat before sailing onto Brisbane. The ghost ship then drifted around the Tasman for a further 3 months before washing up on Brunsy beach in March, talk about big drama on the high seas.

But the walk up the beach was a little sacrosanct, as we knew it would be the last feet in sand moments we would have until the Sunshine Coast, as after Brunsy we head off into the mountains. After our traditional mandatory aussie sunday breakfast, we farewelled Brunsy and the feral fowl, to make for the lush Byron hinterland for a camp at the Mullumbimby showgrounds. No such luck, showgrounds closed to camping, bugger, but Mullums' a beautiful mountain village so we did the rubber neck thing and checked out the locals and their laid back hippie town. Check out the valiant man, he was just so together, his smile was warm as the noon day sun and his car is just magic, sad they don't make them like this anymore, man and machine.

Fuelled up we headed back to the old highway for a nostalgic drive up the old Burringbar range road, until we found the little mountain village of Burringbar. Defunct and stripped of railway, it is now a highway bypass town, its come full circle. It has returned to the quiet place it once was, before highway, a quiet little place where locals sit with their coffee and have all day chats outside the grocery store that pretty much sells everything but progress.

All this is viewed from the comfort of our motorhome parked in the no time limit rest area right in the middle of town, I guess that pretty much sums up Burringbar as a place of no time.

Eureka!!! I found it, an explorative walk around the surrounds, Bilbo found a ripe pineapple guava, on the ground in park, yum yum yum, Bashos favourite fruit, a quick check found the motherloaded tree, you guessed it growing right alongside the old highway, talk about such providence, how many bags did we collect you ask? well lets just say enough to get us well into Queensland.

And so we say, fare you well to the south of New Wales, and tomorrow we head off to the border of the Queens land, and our northern winter sojourn, and fare you all well until our next blog, stay happy, Bilbo and Basho

---

Comments

[tomo]

Great reading, well done bilbo and Basho.
Great to catch up with you during your travels.