Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, June 9, 2004


CARTOON CORNER AT NOOSA HEADS


TRAVELLING north, here I am at Noosa Heads, which would have been wild country once: Inaccessible rainforest, pristine beaches and streams - paradise in a time before Mercedes coupes with personalised number plates and spray-on tans. Now it is one large construction site. An early morning walk is accompanied not by the cheep-cheep of birdsong but by the beep-beep of reversing trucks, roaring generators and bulldozers. The pulse of Queensland is the banging of a builder's hammer. Wondered lately why you cannot find a tradesman in Adelaide? Because they are all in Noosa, that's why. If you are a plumber, an electrician or even a crane driver, this world is your oyster. Noosa is also filled with terrifically healthy looking people, power walking their toddlers in three-wheeled strollers, perfectly suntanned, smiling, happy to be rich. I return their smiles until my cheeks hurt. The young women with golden, sun-bleached hair on the nape of their necks and forearms are a delight to behold walking towards you in skimpy Lycra tops and shorts. From behind, however, the view of G-strings hitched high above their buttocks, frankly, is off-putting. I belch louder than intended in Noosa National Park, only to have koalas in the nearby trees respond with barks. Respect. A frill-necked lizard also checks me out, a low-flying kookaburra crosses my path and perched high on the dead white limb of a gum tree, a sea eagle eats a fish. Butterflies of violet and buttercup yellow float in my face while dragonflies hover around yellow bottlebrush blossoms. It feels like being in a Disney cartoon. Something about the salty aroma of the ocean always makes me feel like going for long walks. Except in Noosa the effect is spoiled by the waft of musk or jasmine perfume as you cross paths. Women seem to wear more perfumed cover-up than men. Are they naturally smellier and is their need greater? Older women, in particular, drench themselves in the stuff. Perhaps their sense of smell is deserting them. The beautiful people in the coffee shops are reading The Australian's Wealth section. Many of their tanned faces are weathered into scowls. Me, I prefer the cartoon pages. Being beautiful one day, perfect the next, is not always what it seems even in Noosa Heads. The local council has announced plans to remove the humpies and caravans occupied by people who have bought blocks of land and have no intention of erecting a dwelling. Having paid a king's ransom for the land, they probably cannot afford a house. The surf club opens at 10am, so by 10.05 you could be sitting on the balcony with a cold beer in hand watching the ocean, and not much else to do for the rest of the day. Pinch me, someone. Up the coast, a pall of white smoke from burning sugar cane is rising like a thunderhead, beckoning.