Leaving Behind

Leaving behind

 my comfy four star (so it said in the brochure) bed

my windy coconut palm Mission Beach view
(it had been calm and sunny the day before)

 and the hurricane stripped, scrawny chicken neck, post Yasi, d-tree-d landscape

I enter the green tree frog, banana leaf, sugar cane town

 of Tully                   (wettest town in the whole dang country they reckon)

Where I'd been told  I was sure to encounter some

 strange characters

and great old buildings

in dire need of repair

(Pause)









(Imagine a photo or two of acres of blue bagged banana trees, cute sugar cane trains, toothpick chewing stop-sign-holding-walky-talky road workers,  windy roads leading up and up to the rolling hill, misty, Milla Milla wonderland, that flattens out into some not-quite-how-I-imagined-the Tablelands-to-be, paddocks and arrives in the middle of the town of Atherton)






where









I came across a sign

no, not this one

not this one either




it was a pretty boring looking sign that said -



 
China town - turn left

 and there it was ...

this fabulous Glen Murcutt, ripple iron, woolshed of a joss house temple

with its ornate carving

Chinese lettering

  frescoed walls

exquisite door handles

and out-the-back-rooms

This part intrigued me more than anything

I peered through a weatherboard crack

 and caught a glimpse of

 a yesterday

 left behind

North Qld, August, 2011
Black and white photos of signs at Houwang Temple, Atherton, North Qld.
http://www.houwang.org.au/