Capricorn Coast
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2003
1
13
87
Trip End
Jan 24, 2004
Town of 17770, Australia
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
The bird calls this morning are sparser and dominated by some big brute that sounds like someone sneezing and being quickly strangled. We're staying at The Edge on Beaches, which was sold to us as a resort with a pool right off the veranda. It turns out to be a residential complex in the early throes of development, most roads leading to empty turnabouts. The only amenity it can be said to be close to is the lawn bowling clubhouse across the street, whose immaculate greens are as peculiar in this region of dry brush as The Edge on Beaches itself.
Our room has been given to someone else so we don't have the pool a step off our door. We're in an unsold condo, two bedrooms up steep steps with no railings, facing across fields to the uncut gum trees a few stone throws away. Still, I like the sparse incompleteness of the unit and development.
We met a family around the pool last night who bought a unit here and waited half a year past projected completion date. Once they finally got possession and saw the construction crew in the pool at three o'clock daily or taking morning surfing breaks, the delays made more sense.
In 1970 Round Hill's citizens, in a fervor of bicentennialism, renamed this The Town of 1770. It's purported to be the next Noosa Heads, but in our very short time here the amenities and even the setting fail to charm us. A friend of Bronwyn's chose this as his favourite amongst all the places in Australia. I'm at a loss to figure out why. The waterfront with its wading mangrove trees and hidden crannies is pretty but hardly breathtaking, and the whole area seems much more brittle and dusty than the richer farming country we passed getting here. The real attraction is its proximity to the southern islands of the Great Barrier Reef, where we're bound today.
