Between the Queensland-New South Wales border and Brisbane is a strip of beach that is the nation’s biggest tourist trap, unimaginatively called The Gold Coast. Here skyscraper hotels stand right on the beach in a crummy representation of Miami or Waikiki. Directly inland are the Nerang Hills, named for the river that flows through them and it was here that, in the opinion of the army, the jungle and humidity and steep mountains very much mirrored the circumstances of the South-East Asian war zones. As a result they built their jungle warfrare training school there, at a place called Canungra. A name to chill the bones of any soldier.

The First Men in the Moon, not on it, by HG Wells and the title oddity reflects the oddity of the book if nothing else. Unlike his greater science fiction works, this one can only be regarded as a comedy these days, and it is hard to say how serious Wells was about it. That he might have thought there were Martians who were wont to invade Earth was easily excusable in his time—that he thought the moon was inhabited is somewhat less so. They live underground, you see, (hence the title) where there is air, food and water. The travellers go in a remarkable vehicle, a big round ball with shutters that can turn gravity on and off. Turn it off and you whirl off into space, turn it back on and the nearest celestial body draws you in. Wells was a serious scientific writer and serious novelist but he also wrote yarns about visits to earth by angels, and the existence of mermaids. This seems to be in the latter category. Verne’s more realistic attempt at the subject was far more impressive.
    The movie version gets off to an interesting start with the Americans making the first moon landing, the astronauts bounding out in their environment suits ready to plant the stars and stripes, only to discover a very old and tattered British flag already there, complete with the names of the men responsible. Only one survives and he is found and tells of the real first moon landing, fifty years earlier.
    The then young Mr Arnold Bedford, (Edward Judd)  cannot overcome his curiosity about his neighbour Professor Joesph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries, just in case you thought this might not be a comedy), and he ends up riding in Cavor’s anti-gravity machine. In the movie version, Cavor has a pretty daughter who is the lure, but that doesn’t really make any difference.
    The anti-gravity machine takes them to the moon where Cavor has no better plan than to crash and allow the machine to bounce and roll to a stop. They soon discover that the moon is inhabited after all, by intelligent locust type creatures who live in an artificial world underground. After some initial misunderstanding, the Moonmen prove to be friendly and take the travellers in.
    Cavors and Bedford assist the moonmen to fight off the monster that threatens them, and the anti-gravity ship is repaired. But Bedford will return alone to tell the story decades later. Cavors decides to remain on the moon and continue his study of the locals.