Miracles
FUTILITY BELT
BOWRAVILLE, NSW – Do you suffer from nervous debility? Perhaps you emit at night due to excessive desire? If so, just drop into the Folk Museum, buckle on Dr McLaughlin’s Electric Belt, dip the chain battery in a cup of apple cider vinegar, and activate. Dr McLaughlin has lots more helpful suggestions along pure-living lines, with patient progress to be reported within 30 days. [High Street. Open Tues and Sat 10-3, Wed and Fri 10-noon. Entry $1.10. Phone 02-6564-7251]
FEATHERWEIGHT BELTS THE HEAVIES
HEATHCOTE, V – A telephone is nailed to a wooden beam in Wild Duck Creek Estate. It doesn’t work. It’s there to remind David (Duck) Anderson of a call he took in 1997. The guy on the other end was a Yank from the Grateful Palate, a wine importer, who told Duck to sit down. ‘Robert Parker has given you 99 points,’ said the caller. Duck did a double take. For those outside the wine game, Parker is hailed as the Million Dollar Nose, the force behind the tippler’s bible The Wine Advocate, with over 40,000 subscribers worldwide. In 32 years of tasting, Parker wasn’t prone to giving 99 points – such a score was the stuff of fairy tales. Overnight, Dave’s Duck Muck Shiraz went from $20 Australian to $1000 US, though a rename was imperative. Even now, you can find Wild Duck Springflat Shiraz 1997 for around A$3000 on eBay. [Spring Flat Road, 5 kms west of town. Open only by appointment. Phone 03-5433-3133]
TALL STOREY
KAKADU, NT – Mimi spirits are so slender their necks might snap in strong winds, goes the legend. Invisible and mischievous, the spirits hang out inside rocks and sneak into the dreams of artists from the Bunidj and Murrwan people. A supposed sample of the spirits’ handiwork, painted with menstrual blood and the powder old wasp nests, hovers on an overhang two storeys above the ground. Dreamtime stories say the Mimi have the power to pull down cliffs, add their signature, and replace the stone. Once you go there you’ll be hard pressed to conjure a more rational explanation. [Part of main gallery at Ubirr, north of Jabiru. Have a read of Offbeat Beat 1 online too!]
LORDS OF THE MANNA
MURWILLUMBAH, NSW – Just before Easter, 2000, a semi-trailer smashed its front axle on the median strip near the Mitsubishi dealership. The truck plunged into the river, along with its load of 40,000 slabs of beer. The driver swam to safety. The load was ditched in order to save the truck. Next day every second male in town duck-dived and breathed through garden hoses to reach the freight. The hospital had never seen so many cut feet in its history. As for the Mustang Under-19s, their season also took a dive. The whole town was in party mode. The pubs were facing bankruptcy. When salvage diver Terry Semple took a reconnaissance he realized the palettes had been picked clean. [Crash site is opposite the Ampol service station, Pacific Highway]
OUR LADY OF ASSUMPTION
PERTH, WA – Patty Powell almost choked on her sandwich when she saw the statue crying. The 70-cm Madonna, made of fibreglass, was a souvenir of a trip to Thailand in 2002. Initial tests revealed the liquid to be a cocktail of rose and vegetable oils. Cynics disagreed – they suspected the tears could be weeping resin. Unfazed, Patty sent cotton balls soaked in the tears to needy invalids all over the world – gratis. The statue was placed in Our Lady of Lourdes, in Rockingham, along the road to Mandurah. [1 Townsend Street. Mass on Sat 7pm, or Sun 7.30, 9.30, 7pm]
NOT A BAD DROP
SYDNEY, NSW – Journalist Paul Sheehan wrote a feature in the Good Weekend extolling the powers of Unique Water. Dr Russell Beckett, a biochemical pathologist, is the boffin behind the bottle. The doctor found that sheep near Cooma in the Snowy Mountains had been lapping streams high in magnesium bicarbonate (thanks to the region’s rocks) and living longer, as well as producing a greater rate of twins. Beckett reckons carbon dioxide is the demon in the average drink, eroding cells and hastening crow’s feet. Sheehan is convinced that Unique Water makes the grass seem greener. [Factory outlet is 45 Alexander Avenue. Open Mon-Fri 7.30-5, Sat 7.30-noon. Phone 02-9525-3033 or visit www.uniquewater.com.au]
WONDERS TO BURN
THE CAVES, Q – Capricorn Caves were once called Olsen’s Caves, after the Norwegian daredevil who tied a rope around his waist and crawled into the abyss in 1882. the names Zigzag Passage, Horse Head and The Flower Pot give you a hint at what he found. But the most remarkable feature occurs on the summer solstice, December 22, when near noon a sunbeam funnels down a pothole and spills underground. So intense is the light that a metal dish in the hotspot will incinerate your entry ticket. Stand in the beam and watch your clothing’s colours thrown into every corner of the chamber. [23 kms north of Rockhampton. Open Mon-Sat, 9-4. Tours run hourly for $16, $8. Adventure tours available. Phone 07-4934-2883]
BIRD OF PASSAGE
WARRNAMBOOL, VIC – In 1878 Charles MacGillivray was strolling along the limestone cliffs edging Bass Strait, when he came across a crate. Inside was a porcelain peacock. Designed by a French artist and made by Minton, the bird was destined for Melbourne’s 1880 International Exhibition. Chipped beak aside, the 2-metre statue somehow survived the Loch Ard shipwreck, along with only two of her 54 passengers. Historians and ceramicists are still bemused. [Perched in Flagstaff Hill Gallery, Merri Street. Open daily 9-5. Entry $15.50/$6. Phone 03-5559-4600 or visit www.flagstaffhill.com]
ODDITION:
As a young monk, Rosendo Salvado was given a painting by an Italian mentor. He cherished it beyond measure, and carried the item to the new world in 1846. One year later, the same painting, Our Lady Of Good Counsel, was laid in the path of a grassfire raging through the new Benedictine colony of New Norcia (WA). From all accounts the fire took one look at Our Lady’s visage and switched direction. You can see the painting, and Salvado’s tomb, within the Abbey Church where the brothers convene daily.