Sep 21, 2006

Tamborine Mountain

On Wednesday we decided to have another holiday day after the domestics of the previous two days (I took Eloise to the library on Tuesday, while Nicole went to work, and we sat down with some Aussie mums and kids for a story telling).

It took about an hour and half to get there down the Pacific Motorway through some lovely countryside and was our first view of real rainforest.

Nicole was the day's excellent navigator and first stop was a lookout point. We drove up to the end of a road and there was Queensland stretching out below us into the distance.

We spent a little while there and filled up on water and snacks then backtracked to Eagle Heights where there was a little row of cafés and restaurants. Nicole chose us the dodgiest one where the "gourmet" food consisted of flourescent pumpkin soup, reheated pie and limp chips washed down with milkshake.

A kookaburra bird sat down for a while next to us, then as Eloise was putting a chip into her mouth leapt into the air, swooped it across and snatched it from her very lips! How we gaped at the cheek of the thing.

After we'd got over that we went for a walk down into a valley to Curtis Falls and marvelled at the enormous fig and gum trees. The track took us eventually to the Falls themselves, see the picture above. It was a very pleasant scene and quite surprising to see so much water given the drought situation in QLD just now.

Eloise was charming everyone we walked past, and was in fine form, so we decided as there seemed to be water about to go on a more adventurous hike down to Witches Falls, which was a 4 kilometre round trip.

The falls themselves this time were rather disappointing but the lookout platform which was situated right next to them seemed suspended over a cliff which disappeared into the forest below which was quite exciting. Eloise was very uncertain about walking on the platform as the gaps between the plank flooring revealed quite a drop beneath.

The lack of falling being done by water here though was made up for by the atmosphere in the forested dells on the way; there was a profusion of palms and gum trees and some truly majestic fig trees which dwarfed us, with buttressed roots spreading the bases of the trees to phenomenal dimensions.

The climb up again was tough and Eloise was only happy when Nicole was carrying her in the rucksack (honest). We were very tired by the time we got back to the car and set off home again... but still decided to stop back at Eagle Heights and have an ice cream, which perked up Spud's spirits no end and prevented her from sleeping a wink all the way home.

See more pictures here.

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