Terry juggling with fire!
Eumundi isn't actually that far north, just a handful of km beyond Yandina. It's also not a terribly big town, so the market being there means that it's very crowded and pretty hard to find a parking place if you get there even just a little too late - fortunately however we easily found a parking space very quickly and very close to the market, an example of being in the right place at the right time. And knowing where to look, of course!
The market itself id probably justifiably popular. It didn't look all that big at first, but with a bit of exploration it could be seen to go on for quite some way - there were stalls everywhere and the paths between them were pretty narrow so the whole place was quite crowded!
Me and Lisa ended up walking round on our own; she was flittering from stall to stall pretty quickly, but I did get a chance to get a general overview. I was looking round for souvenirs but didn't really find too many things that were appropriate. There was a certain Latin American flavour to some of the stalls, which isn't really what I'd expect for Australia. But then I guess there's a little bit of everything here.
I didn't buy any souvenirs from there in the end. I think I thought that some were a tad expensive, for what they were. Also there were stalls there with paintings and furniture - imagine the postage costs on them?!? :p We did buy a couple of snacks, some Rocky Road (kind of like fudge mixed with nuts and marshmallow), and some dutch profiteroles with strawberry syrup. I also had a caramel milkshake.
Along the way we passed by a circus performer making animals out of balloons for the passing kids. Both of us have always wondered about how to do that! Mind you, I've never been very good with balloons anyway; I've never even been able to blow one up successfully!!
Apparently Lisa knows a couple of the circus freaks that were there today; she knows them via the Internet. We passed by them at one point and one (Terry) was juggling with knives and then on a unicycle - his colleagues were helping by holding on to the unicycle as he climbed. And it's one of these colleagues (David) that Lisa knows quite well - but not necessarily by sight! She sent him a text message as they finished and we walked away; he sent a text reply which showed he was unimpressed in an amused sort of way (brat!). LOL!
We saw another performance later on. This time it was just Terry performing for the crowd. As we got there he was playing with diablos (I've dabbled, at Uni, but never got the hang of it, even with one. He was at times playing with up to three!! My circus skills start and end with being able to keep three balls in the air indefinitely!); he wasn't always successful at it but he blamed that on the wind - what he did succeed at, was very impressive!
And then for his last trick - hee hee well he was on his unicycle again, this time he was to juggle with a rubber plunger (!), a beach ball, and a flaming torch. The actual juggling didn't last that long - it was the methodology used to get there that made it noteworthy. Without his helpers he needed some assistance from the audience, most of whom were kids sitting down; as one of the few visible adults, one of the people he called upon was me! Lisa was hiding behind the bloke in front ... not sure if she didn't want to be called out of shyness, or if it was because it was Terry ...
Didn't actually have to do that much really - prance around at the start introducing ourselves (there were five of us in all), but then we got our roles. One had to hold the items to be juggled, and throw them up at the required time; one had to light the torch (at the indicated moment) and look after the fire blanket, just in case; while the three of us left (including me) had to hold on tight to the unicycle before and while he was getting on to it. It was a bit heavy to try to stop moving but we managed!
I passed on Lisa's regards afterwards but not sure if they got through. Anyway, we pottered around afterwards, sat on a small hill for a while (wrote a couple of mini-letters to two penpals)) and watched over the circus performers (Lisa's idea!), but they didn't seem to be doing much else that day. There were a couple of camels that people were riding on that were going round the outside of the market but we were just happy being lazy! Eventually we arranged to meet back up with Lisa's parents for a snack on the other side of the market; me and Lisa shared a large box of nachos from a hot dog stall that had temporarily run out of sausages (they were cooking some but they weren't ready yet!).
After nibbles, I went with Lisa's father to buy myself a wallet; mine was still functional but the coin holder part of it had broken in Las Vegas (the zipper had come off cos I'd overfilled it!). I found one for $26, dunno if that's good or not but it is apparently genuine leather!
We had a bit of a drive in the country in the afternoon. To the west of the Sunshine Coast, the land rises quite sharply and there's a series of hills and valleys that look very picturesque and probably wouldn't seem out of place in Yorkshire or somewhere. At one point we stopped off at a lookout viewpoint and I took a few pictures of the scenery beyond - it was pretty beautiful, but of course pictures can't make up for actually being there.
Also en route, we stopped by a field of sugar cane, so I could take a picture of it. And they are indeed tall plants; they towered high above Lisa's father as he stood next to them! Some of the cane itself can get well over two meters, and that's not counting the leaves on the top which add considerably more to its height! Impressive fields, they are.
We headed for a village called "Montville", which is this nice, quaint, touristy place in the hills. Unfortunately it seems a lot of other people had the same idea, as there was literally nowhere to park! We decided to have lunch further on up the road, in the town of Maleny, and come back to Montville later.
Maleny is apparently noted in the area for being the "hippy town" of the area, sort of like California without the beach, a place where just about anything goes. Not that I saw much of that sort of thing, indeed nothing more than the occasional skateboarder (it's built on a severe hill!) - but then I suppose it is mid-winter! We found a nice little café and had a spot of lunch there (I had a Caesar salad with added chicken, and in iced chocolate shake), very pleasant.
Lisa was, by now, hankering to get back home, but on the way back we did pass through Montville again, and a few people had left so there was a space where we could park. It is quite a weird little place; all that the entire village seems to be is a small, touristy, purpose-built shopping village - a series of small, quaint, craft-shops cafés, and specialist stores. We spent quite a bit of time in an Irish-themed shop; I could have brought back some Blackpool Rock (yes, even imprinted with those words!) but decided that would have been a little surreal, even for me!!
On the way back, I don't remember how it started, but we started backing comments about Bob the Builder, and singing the theme song but inserting different occupations instead of Builder. So we ended up trying to sing, er, Bob the Undertaker, Bob the Chef (try it, it sounds odd!), and er, Bob the Information Technology Specialist! Yeh I know it sounds odd, but it passed the time and it amused us (guess you had to be there!). We even carried on this silly conversation long after we arrived in the McDonalds in Nambour (! - And anyone would think we were addicted?!). We also en route had a conversation about sweet and sour marinated bulls' balls, which caused Lisa to almost choke with giggles. Again, I guess you had to be there ....
The evening was a bit odd. Lisa showed me a few more of her past photos, before Jayden and Heather turned up. Jayden was in a typical 7-year old mood swing and then got told off for it - he was hankering to leave from then on and wouldn't talk to us for the rest of the night.
We spent the evening online a lot but we were pretty tired and went to bed early. Another early start tomorrow - my fault!