I have grocer envy. The entire town of Eumundi should have grocer envy. Eumundi has many good things,  but it does not have a grocer. Kin Kin does. And not just any grocer. Kin Kin has a Joli Good Grocer:


Don't you just love it when people do something with their whole heart and soul: when they take something as 'simple', something as prosaic as - well, a grocer's shop - and transport it to another level? And in this case, a level of picturesque, storybook charm. The letterbox red and jacaranda mauve paintwork, the gravelled courtyard, the pint-sized noticeboard, the window box garden spilling lacy tendrils, the lush potted herbs - oh mercy! It's so darned delightful I couldn't give a fig about the aberrant spelling - which of course, may not be aberrant at all. More than likely it's their name. Ms Joli: proprietor. Or Mr Joli. Or Mr & Mrs Joli. (Yes, I could have asked, but I'm not keen on pestering people. One reason I never took up investigative journalism ...)

Inside the JGG, as you may well expect, all is spotlessly clean and neat as a pin. There is nary a milk bottle nor bar of soap out of place. On the counter, a platter of freshly-baked muffins wait quietly beneath their gauzy canopy. Espresso is available. It will be brought to you in the courtyard on a tray.


What's that you say? You haven't been to Kin Kin? You haven't heard of Kin Kin? You need to remedy that. It's a rather special place, and some rather special people live there. Sound wizard Linsey Pollak, for one. Don't go expecting 'stuff', though. Apart from the JGG, there's little except the pub. (But a fascinating pub nonetheless. In many ways your venacular Queenslander, but with the most extraordinarily capacious proportions: as though designed for a race of giants, who mysteriously departed sometime in the late 1800s).

So why go to Kin Kin? You go for the most painterly, pastoral, romantic countryside you can imagine, hidden away in the folds of a magical valley. There is a presence in Kin Kin - good spirits, I think. You'll feel them if you sit long enough. And even if you don't, you might wake from a daydream to find that  time has stood still, if only for a moment.

Tips:
1. Take the winding road-less-travelled from Pomona (watch those one way bridges).
2. Take a picnic.
3. Turn off the phone.