Reality Check

There have just been too many pretty beach photos of late, so despite the fact that I've been threatened with a horrible end if I publish any more boring Nambour photos, I've taken my life in my hands just for today to bring you this one!

With it's patchwork roads, and disused cane tram lines running through town, it's hard to believe that it's just a few kilometres from the beach. The Sugar Mill was closed in 2003, and some say the heart was ripped out of the town, although by many other benchmarks that wasn't the case, unless of course one happened to be from a family who lost employment in the industry.

For the curious among us, here's a link to a video from YouTube, recalling those glory days of not so long ago, when steam and soot and industrial noises made their way romantically through the heart of town! The video is credited to Ken McHugh.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Loved

I'm the first to admire towns and buildings which display a hard earned patina, a lack of lustre which reflects a long and useful history, but I'm not sure that some of Nambour fits that category.

I'm not sure that it just doesn't reflect a certain lack of pride, or perhaps more charitably a lack of understanding that a coat of paint and perhaps a repair to a sign here and there could well improve the business of the town.

Or am I an unnecessarily harsh critic?

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

In the shadow of St Joe's

There's an architectural expression which goes: "Heaven is in the detail", and while I'm sure the "management" of St Joseph's have a different view of where heaven is, there are glimpses of heaven, in this modern link to the older Church building. Sometimes, when a designer thinks about light and shade, it is apparent in the outcome!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Hairloom

Whoever it is that thinks up these names needs to be PUNished.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Irony

No matter how hard I look at this photo, it's the right corner.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Colour!

Thank goodness there's an electrical retailer across the road to give a bit of life to the Council precinct!

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Reflecting further in Nambour

Perhaps the nicest view of the Nambour telephone exchange is to be found in the reflection from the Council building.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Reflections

The library in Nambour has an obscure glass shopfront with a rather pleasant wave pattern etched into it. Even more pleasant I think, is the reflection of the Council offices in the wave, perhaps the most pleasant view one can have of that building!

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Feet

The public Parking Station in Nambour is not a glorious thing. Like much of the town's architecture it's ugly, unkempt and detailed without regard for the humans who would view it during the day.

It looks ok at sunset though.

However, being able to drive right into the heart of the business district really does save wear on one's FEET! (which is a really sneaky way of participating in a theme day when I'm three thousand miles from where I need to be to take a photo!)

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in the day's theme photos, most of them featuring actual photographs of things properly related to the theme.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Churches Suncoast Christian Care

Well, having given the poor old Sallies a pasting yesterday, do the Suncoast Christian Care people score any more points for their contribution to the streetscape?

I don't mean to be critical of the organisations at all, they survive and use their funds as best they can, but Nambour could really do with a dose of "caring" itself if it's going to present like the living viable part of the city that it really should be.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Churches The Thrift Shop

I have nothing but admiration for the Sallies and the work they do in the community, but it is a shame that their approach to their visual amenity of the neighbourhood isn't a little more...

err..

considered.


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Churches The Salvation Army

The "Sallies" have the most delightfully eclectic approach to building decoration. The hall almost looks as though every part was donated and used without regard to overall aesthetic.

One of my old design lecturers would not approve of the graphics either, lettering she would impress apon us, was meant to be read horizontally in English. She would frequently remind us " If one wants to read vertically, one should learn Chinese"

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Churches The Catholics

Across the road from the Baptists, and on the high side of the hill, where it catches the last of the afternoon sun, is the incongruous but quite pleasant form of St Joseph's. The Catholics got in early all over Australia, and managed to find the high spots in almost every town, a brilliant marketing exercise long before marketing exercises had been invented.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Nambour Churches The Baptists

Nambour has a few pubs, but at the top end of town it's the churches that vie for prominence. Or perhaps once did as one by one the ravages of declining congregations starts to show itself in the level of maintenance.

Here the "bell" tower of the Baptist church seems to shoot rather symbolically from the red "burning" bush.

Nambour
Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Meet the Bigs4 of 4; Big Bob

My second post on this blog featured an election poster for this man!

Big Bob for the Big Job.

Our mayor, and larger than life politician and blues harmonica player, overseeing a very difficult transition as the coast moves from a collection of burroughs to a full fledged city over the next few decades.

Cheers Bob!

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Meet the Bigs1 of 4; The Big Cow

Now here's a picture I posted almost exactly a year ago. I apologise for that, but not for the comments I recall making at the time which had something to do with insecurity of the place as I recall.

We have more than our share of big things on the Sunshine Coast, and the next few days (OK three days) will feature the biggest, including one which doesn't feature in the national list of big things which can be found at the link below. Sadly I didn't have time to find the big bottle or the big shell, but they can wait for another time.

Links to big things!

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Let's get out of here

As we leave town, the view is once again brought closer by the tree lined hills in the background, perfectly framed by those glorious golden arches. Yes the world famous Scottish food establishment is even here.

Nambour has made it!

Nambour.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

This is why it's called Nam"boring"

Sure it's a nice little town but by the third near identical photo, no one cares, not even if it's looking up the side street to emphasize his point about the vistas to the hills.

Actuall a lot can be learned about the town from this photo, the infrastructure happening, the vacant shops, the new shops. It's a town in transition.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

The Main Drag

I have no idea why the main street of our towns are referred to as "drags". If it is a reference to street racing, I can't think of anything less conducive to racing than this, but there's a pretty clear view of the hills at the end of the street anyway.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Namboring

The road into town.

Let's leave Noosa for a bit and head ten or twelve kilometres down the road to what I have no doubt will one day become the commercial heart of the city. It's an interesting planning exercise this Sunshine Coast Region, smashing all the little communities together and waiting for them to join through sheer pressure of growth. It worked very successfully 200 kilometres south on the Gold Coast, and I think that people are forgetting that took 30 years, not one or two.

So Nambour, is often derided by those who live in the more sulubrious parts of town as "boring", but it's far from it. It's a pretty little place with hills framing each of its major thoroughfares. It has none of the glitz of the wealthier areas, but it does have an established population of over 15,000 people and it's not much more than fifteen minutes drive to the beach.

Besides, it's where Council's offices are, so it must be important.

Nambour

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia