Where are we? We have arrived in Gympie.
 |
| Image: Alexas Fotos from Pixabay |
A quick update
We are so thankful to Father God for journey mercies. We arrived in Brisbane on a Friday evening after a great flight, and slept over for one night so that our family could take the 2-hour trip on a Saturday, pressure free. We managed to visited our caravan manufacturer en route to select interior colours for the van! 😀😍 Great excitement. It felt unreal. We also stopped by a store to get SIM cards for our phones before continuing the journey to Gympie. Once in Gympie we stopped off at our son-in-law's parents' place to say hello and pick up the grandkids. There was great excitement meeting up with them. Pure joy! There is no other way of describing that moment.
We have hooked up with a bank, applied for Medicare, and managed to get Andries' phone working, but I'm having difficulties with a SIM that won't work and getting it replaced is proving even harder. This has ticked me off to no end ... I hate not having comms. 😑🙄
The next step in the process of remaining here as permanent residents is to apply for the next stage of our visa, which is the permanent one. It's a major process, and almost ready to lodge. It will place us back into a queue for annual immigration quotas. Our current visa expires in about 18 months, so we're praying it'll be finalised before then. If not we would need to go onto a bridging visa.
We have managed to get Andries set up for work, as he starts a course on 18 September. So kind of our kids to stand off their main bedroom for these 3 weeks, so that we can have our own space, big enough for Andries to have a desk to teach from in a peaceful room, away from kiddy noise. 😁 His birthday was also celebrated on the 7th with great fanfare, much to the kiddies' delight. His greatest gift was meeting his Ute for the first time! Since then he's found a daily excuse to go for a drive, even if he needed to make up a reason to do so. 😄
Now, on to the topic of today’s post: Gympie!
Where is Gympie?
Gympie is in south-eastern Queensland, lying on the Gympie
Creek and the Mary River. It is a rural town, 2 hours north of Brisbane by car.
 |
| Map data: Google, ©2022 Qatar |
 |
Map data: Google, ©2022 CNES/Airbus,
Landsat/Copernicus, Maxar Tech. |
History
Early European settler-graziers (today
activists are calling them invaders 🙄) were already in the area when, in October
1867, James Nash, an English farm worker who migrated to Queensland in 1863, put
Gympie on the map with a discovery of gold. A gold rush of an estimated 60,000
miners ensued. Nash’s Gully – a double line of prospectors’ tents along
the sides of the digging bank – sprang up which is now the historic Mary
Street.
This discovery came at a time
when Queensland was going through a severe economic depression. (Sure wish I
could find a little nugget! 😄) It
is said to have saved Queensland from bankruptcy.
Gympie became a thriving mining town. A Post Office opened in December 1867, a small hut was erected in 1868 to be shared as a church by three denominations, with the Methodists raising the first church in July the same year. Seems they needed a church, as a series of hotels were opened within weeks of the gold rush. Twelve licences were granted in December 1867. 😄 Here is an ad from the period ...
The Nashville Times was operating by February 1868, which became The Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette in October 1868.
 |
| The Tattersalls Hotel, Gympie. 1868 |
A railway from Maryborough along the coast was completed by 1881. (The Historic station is still in use by the delightful Mary Valley Rattler.)
 |
| Gympie Hospital, 1891 |
In 1981 the Town Hall was built on the site where Nash found the first gold nugget (worth a whopping £1.6 million in today’s currency). They had a fire brigade by 1900. And finally in 1903, the Queensland state declared Gympie a town, but by January 1905 it was proclaimed to be a city by the Governor of Queensland.
 |
| The Tattersalls Hotel, Gympie 1900 |
Why "Gympie"?
With discovery of gold the town was quickly known as “Nashville”, after James Nash, that lucky prospector. A year later, however, it was renamed “Gympie”, a word derived from the local Kabi-Kabi people’s language referring to the ‘stinging tree’ or gimpi-gimpi. This plant, the Dendrocnide moroides, delivers a painful punch … I mean, sting. 😖 Deceptively harmless in appearance with a lovely heart-shaped leaf, inviting you to inspect it more closely, it delivers a sensation that has been described as “being burnt with acid and electrocuted all at once” (Hurley, 2018.) 😫🤯
 |
| gimpi-gimpi plant |
It grows in light-filled gaps in the ‘understory’ of a rainforest – yep, you guessed it, that’s the space you and I would be walking around in. 😬 The stinging hairs can remain in the skin for up to 6 months, and re-sting every time they are touched. I imagine a host of miners coming into contact with this plant and living in pure agony, so to alert everyone of the existence of the plant they took desperate measures and named a town after it! 😅 (This is just my imagination running free.) However, one of Australia’s strange marsupial creatures, the pademelon, part of the sub-family of kangaroos and wallabies, munches with delight on this plant. Lol. 🥴 🥴
.jpg) |
| Pademelon |
Gympie Today
The GympieRegional Council area covers almost 7,000 sq. km and has an estimated population of around 50,000. This is currently mushrooming due to various reasons, some to do with Covid-19, others because of existing residents not moving elsewhere, and also due to new interstate arrivals in the region. This has brought about severe housing stress for many, with rental increases and a serious shortage of available rentals.
Gympie attractions
There are many – farms to visit where you can pick your own seasonal produce; restaurants, wineries, distilleries,
and a brewery; nature trails galore for walkers; picturesque sites to enjoy picnics, some with gorgeous swimming spots; canoe and kayak trails; 4WD tours;
abundant cultural and themed tours; customised tours; museums; heritage walks
through the city; music festivals; beautifully maintained parklands and much more.
One icon is the MaryValley Rattler, a
Heritage Steam Train, operated solely by volunteers, which runs to the small town of Amamoor and back. In
2019 we experienced the thrill of taking this outing. It comes highly
recommended and didn’t disappoint. 😀
 |
| Images: (c) S Brandt 2019 |
The Gold Mining and Historical Museum makes for an interesting outing too. Also run solely by volunteers, it offers an impressive array of objects with information about the area’s early days as a gold mining hub. One can go fossicking at Deep Creek, nearby. (Yes, a licence is required from the Lake Alford Visitor Information Centre.)
The Woodworks Museum is well-known, highlighting the timber industry in the region, from its early days until now. Timber was in high demand for the mining industry, so the industry's rise followed hot-on-the-heels of the gold rush. Today the timber industry is constantly a hot topic because of deforestation and logging practices. Be it as it may, it provides employment to many in the region.
 |
| Loggers in earlier times, Gympie. |
One of the art galleries in the region is the Regional Art Gallery, housed in the Gympie School of Arts Building of 1905.
Mary Street, the historic centre of the city, is a must to stroll up and down. Sadly, it was recently inundated by severe flooding; some businesses are still reeling and struggling to get back on their feet. The Lady Mary statue is a local icon. She was the wife of Governor Fitzroy who toured Queensland in 1848 after her accidental death. The Governor named various landmarks in memory of his wife. The statue recognises the struggle with flooding in the area. She appears to bare her dainty bare feet as she crosses the Mary River, also named in her honour. 😄😀
 |
| Image: Lady Mary |
Until next time, blessings, and
thanks as always, for stopping by.
Cheers. 🌼
No comments:
Post a Comment
A reply may take a while, but we will.
Cheers.