Maryborough

On Tuesday we went to explore Maryborough, the biggest town in the area besides Hervey Bay.  It's known for its Colonial Architecture and as the birthplace of Pamela Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books.  There are books you say?  Yeah, I thought it was just the movie, but apparently first it was a whole series of books.  Maryborough is named for the Mary River, not the famous nanny, but I would guess Travers might have picked the name as a nod to her hometown.  In fact, that's not her real name, but a pen name made up of  parts of her father and mother's and her name.  The city even has a Mary Poppins festival every year, and of course this statue that Daniel posed with:

We went on a walking tour to see the historical buildings, but I admit after awhile all the old stuff started to blur together and it involved reading lots of factoids which was too much like reading all the little plaques at a museum.  I ended up just looking around the town and at shops and things.  It started at City Hall, which for some reason is not based on Aussie colonial architecture, but a nod to American colonial architecture, which is why it reminded me of Williamsburg, I guess.

We wound around what turned out to be a pretty sleepy town, eventually ending up at the river for which it is named:

My favorite structure turned out to not be colonial or Australian.  It was a bandstand that was a memorial bought by a sister to honor her fallen brother (a soldier in WWII, I believe, but again I was skimming the factoids at this point).  An agent found it for her in Glasgow, Scotland, and thought it would be a fitting memorial, so it was shipped and reassembled here.  I would have sworn it was Aussie, because they have so much ironwork in those colors even all over the place.  Here it is and a close up of the top:

I've been pretty good and not put all the pictures of birds and flowers I've taken on the blog, but the spring flowers are out right now, and there were several pretty ones in Maryborough.  Many of these are only in tropical areas, so I thought maybe you'd forgive me posting them since you might not have seen them before.

Bird of Paradise (I have seen these other places)

Hong Kong Orchid Tree

Yellow Trumpet Tree

Grevillea

While I found the flowers captivating, Daniel found something that caught his eye, too.  Hopefully, by now most of you know the Three Wolf Moon joke since it's made the rounds via email and facebook.  Daniel found one better at the Maryborough mall, a four wolf moon shirt:

The real prize of the trip, though, was the second hand food processor I found at the St. Vincent thrift store there for $20.  My cooking is so much easier now!