B and B....and P

Just back from a weekend away in the area around a small "heritage" town called Bangalow, about two-and-a-half hours' drive to the north. Bangalow, while pretty, seems in danger of stifling under the weight of its own pretentions, a strange mixture of designer capitalism to cater for the well-to-do Sydneysiders who holiday there and equally well-organised hippy capitalism. Actually, now I think about it, there's no real difference between the two but, somehow, you'd hope there would be. Anyway, we were lucky to get out without having our chakras realigned and our wallets emptied.

We stayed outside the town in a bed and breakfast in hilly countryside that was strangely like mid and west Wales. Though the wildlife wasn't. A carpet python emerged to sun itself at breakfast each day; a slimy-looking tree frog watched us as we sat on our verandah in the evenings; and there was a possum fight in the palm tree opposite, after which one of the possums floundered on to the nearby roof and waddled off with its tail in the air.

We also found a picnic shelter and water tank in the middle of nowhere which was being decorated with coloured glass and mirrors. Don't know why but it restored my faith after Bangalow.....