Amamoor, mon amour

 

Doesn't make a lot of sense, that heading, but it sounded good. And Amamoor was indeed a delicious surprise when we got there. Just don't drink the coffee.

 

It's a tiny settlement 20km south of Gympie, and it's the turnaround station for the fabulous Mary Valley Rattler, sometimes known as the Spirit of the Mary Valley.

 

The heritage tourist train goes pretty well daily, as far as I could make out from its rather opaque website. And it tends to leave Gympie at 10am, arrives at Amamoor about 11am, and then spends about an hour turning around and giving its passengers a leg stretch, before rounding them up again and heading back.

I'd decided it would save a lot of trouble and expense if we just turned up at Amamoor for the 11am turnaround show. And I was right!

A 'bora' and some sharpening grooves

 

 

A bora was a raised earthen circle, traditionally built by women, and used as a meeting place for all kinds of activities. In the local language it was called a 'durn'. There's a fairly well preserved one in the Glass House Mountains region, off Johnston Rd. Nearby, in fact 60m nearby, there was supposedly a 'kippa ring', a smaller circle in which adolescent boys were initiated into adulthood.

 

 

 

There's little info about where this particular kippa ring actually is or was. About 60m nearby is a flat bit of bulldozed land. Here's hoping that it's not there? Do let me know if you've any further information about this.

 

A few kilometres to the north, on the Old Gympie Road on the way upto Landsborough, there's Little Rocky Creek, and a collection of stone tool sharpening grooves.

 

Fine examples. I suspect there are more such places. Sensibly hidden away from the public maybe?

Heritage tramway

 

For a couple of decades early last century, there was a tramway connecting the main line at Palmwoods with Buderim, on the hill overlooking the Sunshine Coast. Part of the track, in the Mons area, is now kept as a heritage walk. I checked it out this morning. More on the tramway here: Wikipedia article