The importance of footwear in the Highlands

I wear boots - good quality Italian hiking boots (Scarpa).
I wear them all the time.

It is not a fashion statement (nothing about me is a fashion statement). It is simply practical.
Good boots offer support for one's ankles and feet. It is also a protection from grass-seeds, sharp sticks poking my toes, and of course, potential protection from Snakes and Spiders and helps with Leeches as well. I do not worry about Snakes and Spiders, but nor do I ignore their potential bites. I simply wear sensible protective footwear.

Why am I going on about this?

*****

Well, it is because I found myself in a "Enviro-bubble" in Burrawang yesterday.
I went to the Burrawang Pub, with Kirsten, after our excursion to Fitzroy Falls and then Kangaloon, looking for Orchids.
The Pub was very busy. Fair enough it was Saturday lunchtime.
But that was not the problem.

i genuinely felt ill at ease in the Burrawang Pub yesterday.
After a while I realised that I was surrounded by transplanted city people "enjoying the country" - hence my reference to "Enviro-bubble". This was not just a social bubble (that was the first, and most obvious impression). But it was more:- these people appeared to have transported their entire world, and their environment with them.
This is an achievement which would have challenged Dr Who and his Tardis.

The clue was not just in their strange clothing (one expects city women to wear skimpy city clothes, and the men to wear designer shorts and short-sleeved shirts), but specifically, it was their footwear.
The men wore canvas shoes (no socks), or thongs.
The women wore various stylish sandals, or up-market thongs.

Their footwear simply was suitable for only walking from the car to the Pub, and back again. Certainly one could not safely walk down the paddock to check if the cow has given birth yet. (as if these people would even know to what I am referring).

It was this realisation which made me realise that suddenly the Burrawang Pub had become part of the North Shore, or Eastern Suburbs.
We had been transported to an alien place.
I could barely wait to finish off my very nice Coopers Light, and escape to the door.

Once outside, we drove away from Burrawang, the back way, down through Wildes Meadow, Belmore Falls Road and escaped back to the real world - much to my relief.

Advertisement from Burrawang Store.

By the way, as proof of this "Enviro-bubble" I had been trapped in, here is corroborating evidence that I was also in a Time Warp, for the Daily Telegraph was offered at one penny in the "old money".
So, even way back then "The Tele" was not worth the money.

So that was my one "real experience" I can take with me, from my trip to Burrawang.
I will go back again, some time, but certainly never again at peak Summer Holiday Season.