Gympie's flood map haunts your mind

Just got back from Gympie...

Went there to reconnoitre the territory. Staid in Mary Street in  a local pub and spent the two days exploring real estate, real hills and valleys; and real prices.

There are plenty of steep hills in Gympie and when the place floods, as it does regulary, these rises serve as isthmuses and islands in the stream.

The 1999 flood (pictured below)was one of the biggest Mary River floods to inundate the town.

That year, the pub we staid in was under water to its first floor as was most of Gympie's main street, Mary Street. It's a strange feeling to walk around town with the presumption that you are walking in the deep end  of a very large -- and for now, empty -- swimming pool. When Gympie floods, a massive amount of  water is needed to drown it.

So when you go looking at real estate in Gympie  the flood map has to be in the back of your mind.

Even the sewage system has to breathe  through outlet flus (pictured above)  that rise these activities  above the highwater mark 

The irony being that what should be  a town icon -- the sewer flus -- don't suit a tourist image of  a tidy town so they aren't celebrated.

But floods come and go..and if your road into town is inundated,  maybe there's  a back way around the shoreline.? but then, maybe not...

We also learnt

• that some very  tasty sausages (and hickory smoked) are made in Gympie
• that you'd need a mountain bike to cycle around town  if you wanted to remain seated uphill (scootering is a downhill activity only)
• that the McMansion pandemic has also infected Gympie's new housing estates
• that there are even more real estate agencies in Gympie than Opportunity shops.But as many Op shops as computer shops.
• that I can walk anywhere in town from Mary Street,  up hill and down dale,  in about 30 minutes.
• that you can get cheap espresso and quality food in main street cafes.

Is Gympie calling?

Here at maison dave there have been many traumas over the last 6 weeks and in terms of kith and kin, one death. These changes are also an opportunity that  carries  a carpe diem promise.

"Gympie -- stay where you are, we're coming to visit."

Two and a half hours by train north of Brisbane -- it  takes longer to travel to  the Sydney Western suburbs! --  Gympie ticks a lot of boxes -- such that I have to suspect it is has to be  a  best kept secret.

The occasional flooding of the Mary River is a drawback  as is the penchant for political conservatism (it was a stronghold of One Nation for a  time) -- but the campaign to save the Mary River from the Traveston Crossing Dam has shaken up local alliances and the  hippies are now accepted valley partners.

Aside from my partner's biological roots (and I don't mean flora) in the district, it's a trade off for not shifting all the way south to Central Victoria. But you need to try before you buy and after a lot of homework we are set to do more field research.

For my part , so long as I have ready rail access to Brisbane  and the primary adhesions of urbanity -- a railway station, shops, espresso,a  public library, a general hospital, town water and sewage -- within a formated radius of no more than  5  and preferably 3 kilometres (give or take a metre or two) from a chosen abode -- I'm happy to call it 'home'.

And I like Gympie. I spent time there as a community artist and walked its byways.Even marched down its main street with the locals cheering me on.  It's a very Anglo-Celt town. The annual Gympie Muster  suggests its cultural preferences.

...but hey, I'm not going to start wearing iconic style Akubras just to fit in. If I'm to wear felted rabbit fur I want it in pork pie format..(And Akubra  do make a pork pie  shaped hat but keep it out of their catalogue).

So imagine me -- pork pie atop my head, humming a country and  western tune -- boot scooting the streets of Gympie.