Urghh
ORAL HISTORY
INNISFAIL, QLD - CSI Miami would go drool at the dental evidence on display in the Innisfail Museum. Local dentist Mr Allan Wakeham is the culprit. Not only did the guy spend a lifetime taking plaster moulds of citizens’ mouths, he kept them! A dozen boxes are stacked with the disembodied gobs of Far North Queensland, depicting such archetypal horrors as Lingual Erosion, Thumb Sucker, Over-Eruption, Open Gate and a mangled specimen identified as Utter Neglect. [11 Edith St. Open weekdays, 10-12, 1-3. Phone 07-4061-2731]
DENTAL THERAPY
STAWELL, V - Okay, just two urghhs into the list, and you’re starting to figure I have a tooth hang-up. You’re probably right. Casper’s World in Miniature has a midget Eiffel Tower, and other pint-sized landmarks, but stoop inside King Tut’s pyramid and the fun really starts. Retired dentist David Lye has this milky reptilian thing out of old molars called a Dentasaurus rex. But why stop there? The dentist has gone for the doctor, gluing the unwanted fangs of Toorak and Warracknabeal (where he plied his trade) to create crocodiles, rain forests, plus a gum tree made of..yeah..gums. David calls it ‘the largest display of dental leftovers in the world’ and so far, nobody has contradicted him. [Open daily 9-5. Entry $8.50, $7.50 and $3.50. Look for the Eiffel Tower form the road.]
THE CHOSEN PHEW
LISMORE, NSW - Lantana choked the glen, big time, inspiring the Rotary Club to swing machetes in 1985. Vines were chopped. Weeds were outed. Ivy was sayonara. Gradually, six poxy hectares were restored into the paradox called a dry rainforest. Fig trees and hoop pines are now flourishing, but the good work has also come with a price. Encouraged by its habitat’s return, the stinkhorn fungi has taken up residence in the grove, ponging the pocket with its own unique brand of perfume, assuming the humidity is right. Braving the funk, you can see the poison peach and a tree called the axebreaker, but really the eyes are past caring if the nose is so distracted. Probably wise to avoid the park after heavy rain. [On Rotary Drive off Bruxner Highway, heading towards Ballina.]
SUPER BOWL
MILDURA, V - Don’t expect to catch a 747 to Singapore at the Mildura International Flight Centre. (In fact the only red-eye you could catch may result from the place’s unique perfume – and I don’t mean the duty-free variety.) The Flight Centre, otherwise known as the town’s sewage farm, is recognized as one of the best bird hotspots in Oz, with more than 142 bird species on record. The cess-pond is over a kilometre long, and about 150 metres wide, coloured a dubious tea-brown. Plantation gums and native mallee offer ornithologists the ideal cover to perv on freckled ducks and rainbow bee-eaters, neither of which can possibly possess a developed sense of smell.
GUT REACTION
MONTO, QLD - The old butcher’s shop, refitted into the Monto History Centre, is run by Cec and Beryl Bleys – a retired butcher and his apple-cheeked wife. What the pair don’t know about Monto and surrounds has yet to occur. The couple sold T-bones for 28 years from the premises but now prefer to chew the fat with passing tourists. Just don’t ask about the giant coconuts on the shelf. You might find out they’re not coconuts at all but whopping great hairballs extracted from cow stomachs. [2 Kelvin Street. Open weekdays 10-4. Donation entry. Phone 07-4166-1277]
DROPPING IN
GUNNEDAH, NSW - As the self-proclaimed Koala Capital of the World, Gunnedah knows how to market its warm and fuzzy advantage. Ramble the Waterways Wildlife Park on Mullaley Road, or even Anzac Park beside the Visitors’ Centre, and you’ll get a sore neck from tallying the bears on high. Yet to create a trust fund for Blinky Bill and his umpteen buddies, the town has resorted to selling a product known as Koala Kitsch. For only a $1 a pop you can buy a tasteful sachet of koala pooh with a distinct eucalypt fragrance. Warning, reads the packet, contents not to be consumed. Strangely, this needs to be said, since koala dumps are the dead spit of liquorice bullets.
SINKHOLE
GERALDTON, WA - Rain, hail or shine, roadworkers couldn’t figure out why this one little patch of road was always boggy. Weirder still, the puddle would lapse into bubbling now and then. When geologists explained the erupting mud was due to groundwater being pressured through old volcanic ash, otherwise known as betonite clay, the road gang still couldn’t warm to it. So the guys ensured the route sidestepped the enigmatic muck. We suggest you do the same thing, unless you want globs of baby-shit mud on your size 11s. Makes quicksand seem decidedly slow. [North of Chapman Valley Winery along the Nanson-Howathara Road. The mud is signposted.]
BAYOU URGHH
COBDOGLA, SA - If you want to see the only working Humphrey Steam Pump in the world, head for Cobdogla, between Berri and Barmera on the Sturt Highway. But be careful when you visit. In the summer of 2002/3, the bone-dry swamp edging the town caused such an unholy reek that residents became prisoners in their own home, their air-con systems recycling the captive air to a point of asphyxia. At this rate, if dry conditions prevail, the state government is keen to trial a giant cut-out pine-tree to be suspended over the town hall.
JUMBO JOTTERS
CANBERRA, ACT - At Pepe’s Paperie you can buy something for that difficult someone who has everything. I’m only guessing that same person doesn’t own their very own scroll of parchment pulped from elephant crap. A portion of the money you spend on Dumbo’s dump-ware goes to the Millennium Elephant Foundation, a fund set up to preserve jungle habitat, as well as keeping senior heffalumps sheltered and fed, and so excreting truckloads into the future. [Shop 67, Woden Plaza, Phillip, ACT. Open daily. Phone 02-6282-0300]
QUESTIONABLE FEET
WYUNA, V - Pity a bloke like Murray Ross. Poor guy had the job of driving the school bus from A to B, suffering the dubious odours (and intellects) of adolescents. Seriously, the odours were the worst of it, the teen feet in particular. Ross got so despairing with the arch-offenders he ordered the smelliest socks to be removed before term ended, and ceremoniously stapled to a tree by McCoy’s Bridge. On the Goulburn River. Since then, the reeky ritual has perpetuated, with a whole generation of high-smelling Holeproofs dangling from the branches. Further directions are not required – just follow your nose.