Saturday


Saturday we headed out to a market in a town close to Kuranda, turned out we had some misleading information and the market was not on that day . Ed talked to the local mobile coffee shop and we got some great recommendations for local attractions.


First off to a another market in Malinda, a town about 40 minutes away. Lots of local produce, crafts and etc. One unexpected treasure: black sapote aka chocoloate pudding sapote


BLACK SAPOTE: a species of persimmon native to eastern Mexico and Central America. See images.


Fruit is the size of bocchi ball with an inedible skin that turns from olive to a deep yellow-green when ripe. Pulp is white and inedible when unripe but assumes a flavor, color and texture often likened to chocolate pudding when ripe.


Yup, it does taste like a very lightly sweetened chocolate pudding right down to the texture .


Unfortunately, ripened fruit is very soft (sorta like a bag of jello) and not really suitable for export.


....then we were off to Herberton known this time of the year for the beauty of its flowering jacuranda trees. The village did not diasappoint. The glorious purple flowered trees were scattered around the village and lined short sections of streets in some parts of town.




....next stop HERBERTON HISTORICAL VILLAGE. Now this was a treat


Located in the Atherton Tablelands, Herberton is the oldest town on the Tablelands. Etablished in the 1880s during a tin mining boom . The town itself has retained a charming street scape with old period buildings housing modern business with facades true to the 1800s.


Just outside of the town itself, a 16 acre Historical Village has been reconstructed. The 50 plus restored period buildings relocated to this site along with relevant period artifiacts were a true delight. We spent hours exploring and imagining ourselves in that time period.


The tea room (located in restored cafe) was just as delightful. Stopped there for both tea (aka coffee) and lunch.


Now this was unexpected - an entire shelf of GOLLYWOG dolls for sale. We were somewhat aghast although acknowledging they are a part of the history of the times. Reader Alert! Unless you want to read a lot about this topic you can skip to the second last paragraph in this section and get the Readers Digest version .


This, of course, launched me into research mode. Did you know WOG means:

Origin of the term is unclear but here are some of theories:

-first noted by lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines coonwogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast."

-many dictionaries say "wog" derives from the golliwogg, a blackface minstrel doll character from a children's book published in 1895, or from pollywog, a maritime term for someone who has not crossed the equator.

-acronym for "Wily?/Worthy? Oriental Gentleman",

-acronym for "Working On Government Service"


Recently, there was even a popular stage show, Wogs Out of Work, here in Australia . Show parodied Greek life and was followed up by a TV series, Acropolis Now. A film, Wog Boy, stars Melbourne comedian Nick Giannopoulos as a dole bludger. Soccer is sometimes known as "wogball" in Sydney.



now onto GOLLIWOG...

"Golliwogg is a type of a rag doll. It is also known as golliwog or golly. It is made from black fabric and has black eyes bordered with white, red lips with white teeth and frizzy hair.


Inspiration for gollywogg dolls came from Florence Kate Upton who was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York and was daughter of English parents. Her father died when she was 14 and she moved back to England. To be able to afford art school she illustrated book “The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog”. It was a children’s book which had a character by the name of Golliwogg who looked scary but was a positive character . Inspired by blackface minstrels he had black skin, red lips and frizzy hair and was dressed in traditional minstrel cloth. Golliwogg proved very popular and book sold very well in England along with its sequels. Similar dolls and images started carrying name gollywog because of that popularity and because Florence did not patent the name. This made the doll a popular children’s toy during large part of 20th century. Its fame was so wide that it spread to advertising and other selling items like children's china and other toys, ladies' perfume, and jewelry. James Robertson & Sons, British jam factory, used Gollywog as a mascot from 1910 until 2001. “Blackjack” - aniseed candy made in United Kingdom used gollywog’s face from 1920s until 1980s.


One theory of the origin of the name “Golliwogg” says that while British soldiers held Egypt in the second half of the 19th century they had Egyptian laborers that worked for them. Workers wore insignia W.O.G.S. on their armbands which meant “Working on Government Service”. British troops spoke of them as “ghouls” - which is an Arabic word for a desert ghost. Egyptian children played with black dolls which they would sometimes give to British soldiers or they would buy dolls from children. That dolls were later called “Ghuliwogs” and later “Golliwogg”. How much truth is in this theory - it is not known.