:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Thursday 18 November 2004 ::

DAY FIVE:
218395 on the clock (not much Mazda movement today) and Kingaroy remains as Kingaroy is. What is keeping me here? Only the Kingaroy High School 6th Form Formal at the Town Hall 6p.m sharp, a full on 60m red carpet, nearly the whole town turning out to watch frocks and youths in suits. Would you not hang for that? I was there with my Kingaroy hostess. We were glamourous and we got a couple ‘Who are those two?’ comments from the crowd. Very gratifying.

Highlights:
- girlie in motorised wheelchair, one of the Form 5ers on duty with the serving and the ushering, who was asked by a concerned friend if she could see everything okay, with the crowd blocking so much of the view. She replied ‘yeah, I can see fine. I’ve already seen bitchface in her outfit’ to which her buddy replies ‘Erica, language’. Puhlease. Zif she needed to be worried about me and my buddy getting offended at such natural and accurate nomenclature. Every Oz school has a bitchface – and I believe it was the girl in the blue gown who had an expression on her dial like the piggery van had just driven by (and one did drive by as I was on my way for a counter meal at the Carrollee, and I was a bitchface for a couple minutes thereafter. Phwor, yetcht.)

- girlie in floor length strapless pink gown wearing white American High Top trainers and ridiculous stripey knee socks, with her crazy Pa leading her along the red carpet, he with beard and top hat, very Slade mixed with Comancheros sorta look about him. She was an angel, with plaits and pink dye in her mousy blonde hair. Very alt country cool.

- boy with two girlies to escort, him in the full white Saturday Night Fever suit, boy in the lime green suit, a full on Kingaroy goth girl, a full on freaky gay boy who must have weighed about 40 pounds max, most of that his high superblonde hair, the honey in the teddy boy jacket, the two girlies wearing the same frock – oh the shame, the tension - and the crowd a happy mix of enthusiastic and proud parents, sugared up kiddies and petrol heads dropping off their charges in hotted up everythings, from GT Falcons to a sweet old Model A Ford.

Did some touring round today, with my hostess, including an episode that can only be known as Wog in the Wild...well, in a national park which is wild enuff for an urban sort like me. There was the feeding of sunflower seeds to the brightly coloured birds, which landed on hands, outstretched arms, shoulders and even in the red hair. Tremendous if a little scritchy. Wandered on to a path into the rainforest, saw strangler figs and Bunyah Nut trees and then, saw him – him being a sensational Bower Bird hard at work with his collection of blue things, and his crazy bower all built up and curvy. If that bird does not get laid in the next month then something is clearly wrong with the Bunyah Park Bower girlies, who frankly, being all khaki coloured and fat, should not be so picky and choosy about their mates, cos they ain't oil paintings.

Bought myself a truly awful Australiana teatowely/tablecloth thing, with pictures of koalas and boomerangs on, purely on the strength of the wierdest rendering of a penguin on cloth I have ever seen. Normally penguins look kinda cute but stupid. This one just looks … wrong.

Was taken to a farm run by a relative of my hostess, where an elaborate hoax was perpetuated to try to convince me that peanuts are a crop planted in the ground and that the actual things themselves grow in the ground. O p-shaw, I say. And I still say, since the farmer - a top bloke apparently fond of classical music which he plays loud in the cabin of his feaux-peanut harvesting tractor - was unable to pick a shrub up which actually contained nuts underground. Instead the “evidence” was nothing more than some empty husks strewn casually about some weird weeds planted all in a row. I maintain the things grow on trees and I am not taking a step back. For the supposed peanut capital of the world the folks round here know remarkably little about nuts – which grow on trees. Surely. I mean, a nut is closer to an acorn than a potato, yeah? Well...I rest my case. ....Harrumph.

BBQ had been bumped in honour of The Formal. So following countermeal at Corrallee, played some very ordinary pool on a proper billiards table at the Kingaroy RSL. Melinda Schneider playing that night, but me and my host played pool. Won both games despite the fact the other end of the table is more a geographic concept for me than an actual visible target but the whole effort was quite shameful, frankly.

I am told that there is a fruitshop place somewhere nearby, where the owner is a fruit vendor and Elvis impersonator who has natch named his joint ‘Grapelands’. Must try to find. Also there is a bank and café somewhere nearby too, which prolly needs to be seen to be believed. Plus am planning a trip to the Peanut Van for some of them honey smoked peanuts that are great. And am planning a visit to the world’s worst cellar door – here’s hoping that there have been no improvements since a visit by my hostess about a year ago.

So, more in a bit. Thanks for reading and for the e’s. It is great to hear from folks with good advice on travels in Queensland.

:: WB 4:44 pm [link+] ::