Conspiracy

We had the most marvellous weekend. Both relaxing and energising, sleepy and sporty; the perfect balance of pure luxury and down to earth small town fun. But there was something a little weird going on in that town.

We stayed in a little non-touristy town (as is our want) on a beautiful creek, whose name I wont mention here, and filled our days either swanning about in the luxury Bed and Breakfast; or...

fishing the creek with all manner of bird life. On one night we caught about 7 fish, threw back five and kept two for a BBQ by the creek;

or kayaking out on beautiful Lake Macquarie.

But I think in reality we had happened upon a town run by some sort of strange cult. It started with what we thought was some kind of joke, a strange fetish... that's right, some sort of donkey fetish cult!

The afternoon we arrived we noticed this 'logo' was stickered onto the outside of a painting in the reception of the B&B. Strange we thought...

But not as strange as the large donkey surrounded by swirling energies that adorned the window of largest shop in the small main street.

There were donkeys in all the windows of all the shops! This isn't a great photo... but after photographing this donkey in the window of a store the locals started paying close attention to us. This Donkeys speech bubble said something about 'community spirit'.

We thought it prudent to go back to our B&B...

Waiting for us in the shared lounge of the B&B was, you guessed it, a donkey. It was obviously a warning for us not to pry into the donkeys. Notice the strange 'orbs' that circle the donkey.

Over the next few days we tried to snap pictures of the donkeys that adorned every backyard that faced onto the creek. Unfortunately every time we tried to line up a shot the curtains would twitch or someone would walk out onto their back porch. It was almost as if they were expecting us. Needless to say we didn't get a lot of shots. It didn't make any sense to us but with this strangely unspoken threat hanging in the air we knew to start pretending to ignore the ever present donkeys.

The last photo taken here was followed by someone walking out of their back door and, with an aggressive stance, proudly but silently making a sign that can only be described as Donkey Ears. Holding the forearms directly up to the ears and waving the hands in our direction as if to mimic donkey ears... we fled.

On our last day there, not wanting to be in the town, we borrowed some bicycles from the B&B and went for a tour of the local district. And despite the occasional Kookaburra laughing at us it was very pleasant.

But as we came back into town, we were cut off by a large white van. Behind the tinted windows was a man that can only be described as having a piggish white face hidden under a mop of curly brown hair. He quickly rattled off an address followed by that same Donkey Ears gesture. My curiosity peaked, I managed to convince Mooncar to come with me to that address and after having a little trouble finding it we cycled in through the front gate of a large tree lined housing compound. The piggish gentleman walked nervously across the gravelled walkway towards us, and that's when we heard the low hum of an engine...

The strange thing is... there have been no reports of missing aircraft at all.

Needless to say, after the crash that barely missed us as I took the photo and resulted in the demise of this poor fellow, we got back on our bikes and went straight to the train station without collecting our belongings from the B&B. As we rode the first train out of town we considered ourselves very lucky to be alive and resolved never to go back into the Donkey country of the central coast ever again.

It was a fun weekend though, certainly not boring.