Karaka

Our Lonely Planet Guidebook says that there is still architectural evidence of the 19th Century gold rush in Thames but grizzly prospectors have been replaced by alternative lifestyles. We have noticed this! Sometimes we feel like we are on a different planet. There seem to be many odd or unusual things/people in this town. Haha.

We walked around the town, just to get a feel for it and noticed a few interesting places near the shoreline where there is a park with a sidewalk. A Small Gauge Railway takes kids for a fun 900m ride around the park. From the sidewalk, there is a walkway going through a mangrove to a hut that you can sit in to observe some of the many seabirds.

Surprisingly there is also a Carnegie library.

On Saturday morning, we walked down the steep track to the market which is set up on the Main Street. Our hosts had mentioned a stand with delicious red peppers so our goal was to drop by the market for a minute or two to buy some. But, the market was a lot more interesting than we thought it would be.

Yes, there were fruit and vegetable stands as well as crafts, but there were also musicians and people selling ‘antique’ junk and used clothing. It was a hodge podge of activities, some quite amusing. We had fun finding our red peppers.

At the end of the market, the museum was having a Fun Day with old-fashioned games and activities and people dressed in flapper costumes.

We also discovered that Thames has many used clothing stores. Apparently, because of the big ‘ageing population’ here, older people tend to clear out their old clothes and items quite often in the downsizing process and donate them to the op shops. I’m not sure if any young people would be interested in the larger sized clothing ...

By 11 a.m., we were ready to visit the School of Mining Museum.Read more