Today we went for an excursion to The Ginger Factory in Buderim about an hour from Bribie heading north – that’s an hour if you took the Bruce Highway (which is the major 4-lane highway heading north) but Gordon has a ‘thing’ about seeing the backroads so it was out with the GPS (AGAIN!!) This time I have to agree with the backroads and thoroughly enjoyed the ride. We went past Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo (note the ‘went past’ – not our cup of tea!) Had a great view of the odd shaped Glasshouse Mountains (I think I’m right in saying they were originally volcanoes thousands/millions of years ago, and they’ve been eroded down to the bare volcanic rock). Really impressive. We followed the railway line a lot of the way and I was surprised to see how big the stations are and how many cars in the carparks – obviously there’s a lot of commuting goes on from these outlying areas.
Our first stop for the day was Montville – a small alpine town that seems to attract a heap of tourists. It’s a cross between Hanmer, Austria with an Irish Cottage thrown in!! Kinda cool though! A great view of the valley below. For me the highlight was the Clock Shop – yes, the Clock Shop!! I’m into clocks and this was clock heaven!! There were clocks of every shape and size and there were literally hundreds of them!! There were cockoo’s going, bells chiming and clocks ticking – a bit of a racket but amazingly wonderful!
There were clocks in all shapes and sizes, making all kinds of noises - I loved it!!
The Ginger Factory was a tad commercialized but very well done. We joined the ranks of ‘The Tourist’ and did a tour of the Factory. The Ginger industry started with just a couple of guys forming a co-operative back in the 1930’s and is now a multi-million dollar industry. They grow the ginger locally and export to heaps of countries. We came home with the goodies – I was shocked that the ginger sits in a sugar brine for 14 days – which is why that lovely sugary crystalised ginger tastes so good of course!! There was a train giving people rides round the site (at a cost!) which was an original train used in the sugar cane industry; a boat ride round the story of the Ginger Factory (a lot like ‘It’s a Small World’ at Disneyland – again at a cost) with a puppet show of the All Blacks doing the Haka (seems like the old rivalry just never goes away and there’s zero resistance to having in the fore whenever possible!); and lifesize Gingerbread Men which reminded me of the many Gingerbread Men I’ve baked in my Early Childhood Education career (and wanting to take one home for Ella!!)
This gingerbread Man was the same height as me - all the tourists were lining up to have their photo taken with him ....
All in all a great day and another trip ticked off the list!!
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