To hell with melancholy John Masefield wanting to go down to the sea again , this writer wants to return to the interesting Queensland sugar town of Ayr , which is not far from the briny anyway . This desire developed as a result of a recent one day trip from Townsville to Ayr and environs in a small car fitted with four new spark plugs, causing it to run like a powerful , dodgy VW diesel .
In a search and discovery drive about picturesque Ayr several streets were noticed bearing the names of Australian capital cities. Checking , it was found that every capital has a street named after it , the start of Canberra Street below.
Ayr has a special place in the fading memory bank of this writer as my wife and I quickly passed through the town on the way to Adelaide from Townsville after Cyclone Aivu in 1989 and noticed the wooden Catholic church at Brandon leaning at a drunken angle . The church has been rebuilt and seems to be on a new site . As shown in the previous post in this blog, Ayr has interesting buildings , the post office , below , another one of note .
Famous artists are also daubed about Ayr's streets-Picasso, Rubens , Gainsborough , Drysdale , Constable. The royals also get a run .
It is good , however, to see forelock tugging is not rampant in the area as an irreverent online publication , The Burdekin Herald , takes the mickey out of the local establishment, the Queen, politicians , the Murdoch owned punchy Burdekin Advocate , ( online it claims to punch above its weight ) , even sportsmen.
One of the Herald's many exclusive stories revealed that the Burdekin Shire Council planned to release thousands of deadly Black Mamba snakes to eradicate cane toads . The newspaper claims to employ 200 journalists in the media capital of Australia-Ayr.
Wandering about Ayr on foot , this writer came across some Nazi daggers for auction and only bought one book from an op shop because the Salvation Army store , unfortunately, was shut and one could only press a pointy nose against the window and stare at all those volumes on the shelves , the titles of which were unable to be read at the distance. The chair , above , attracted a lot of attention in a large furniture shop .
LUCKY RABBIT FOOT NOTE : Little Darwin has been flooded with requests from people wanting this blog to give their town a quirky write up like the ones we recently did on Ayr as someone there won $23.3 million in Powerball soon after .
LUCKY RABBIT FOOT NOTE : Little Darwin has been flooded with requests from people wanting this blog to give their town a quirky write up like the ones we recently did on Ayr as someone there won $23.3 million in Powerball soon after .
