Weekend and Whale Watching (7/26-28)

It was another lovely weekend in Brisbane, and I enjoyed it immensely, especially my morning runs along the river.  The weather continued to be beautiful (though the locals think 70 is cold!) so I spent the afternoons wandering through the parks, shopping and just taking it all in.  It's funny how quickly I got to know this city; I find it very easy to wander and not get lost. 

Monday, I arranged another tour, this time to do some whale watching in the ocean off Surfer's Paradise, Gold Coast.    I wasn't sure I was going to do this, but so many people here have told me I had to make it down to Gold Coast, a city on the water which I've been told is Australia's answer to Miami; a very popular place for Australians to spend holidays.  I'm very glad I decided to make the trip.

Surfer's Paradise is actually a suburb of Gold Coast, and the drive there took about 90 minutes.  When we arrived I had time to walk around a bit before getting on the boat, and I took a few pictures.  My impression was that this was indeed a beautiful, albeit very touristy, beach town.  The water was gorgeous and crystal clear, and the views from the buildings lining the water must be incredible.





















Once on the boat, the day really began to be wonderful.  Our guides were fairly young guys, extremely knowledgeable and clearly passionate about the protection of the whales and all the creatures in the ocean.  It took about 45 minutes to get from where the boat was docked out to the open ocean, and along the way they pointed out some beautiful homes belonging to many wealthy and famous Australians such as Ian Thorpe (Olympic swimmer), and non-Australians like Jackie Chan.  The whole trip out to the ocean was scenic and beautiful, but I just wanted to get out to the ocean, hoping to see at least one whale.






















As soon as we made it out to the ocean, one of our guides spotted a whale in the distance.  We moved closer, and spent most of the next two hours watching this fella - he was simply gorgeous!  Apparently, more than 200 whales a day pass through this area of the ocean during the migration season; they're headed back to Antarctica after coming North to mate and breed.  According to one of our guides, this particular whale was young, maybe one or two years old, judging from his smaller size.  He was awesome.  It was tough to get good pics, because he'd go under for a while, then come up and breach, and if the camera wasn't ready, we'd all miss him.  Unfortunately, I saw a lot that I didn't get to record.  However, at one point, he came up and swam right next to the boat - so I was able to snap a few pics of him before the afternoon ended.

After watching him play for a few hours and enjoying the gorgeous ocean air, we had to turn around and head back to Surfer's.   Our guides were sorry we didn't get to see more ocean life - sharks or turtles - though we did see dolphins in the distance on the way back.  I wasn't disappointed though.  I'd never seen a whale before, and holy cow I won't soon forget how unbelievably awesome it was.  I couldn't stop smiling on the way back - so grateful for another incredible afternoon in this most beautiful country.

Bushwalking! (July 24-25)

Thursday was another work day; I spent the day visiting St. Aidan's Anglican Girls School in Corinda, a suburb of Brisbane.  This is the school our students are attending for the week as part of our exchange program. I won't bore you with the details (unless we work together, in which case I promise to bore you in person) - suffice it to say that the school was incredible, and I learned quite a bit that I can take back to my own school.

Friday I signed up for a Rainforest bushwalk; bushwalk is essentially Australian for hiking.  The day started early, with a pickup at a nearby hotel. As soon as Ed the tour guide stepped out of the bus to greet us, I knew it was going to be a good day.  Ed was young, energetic, enthusiastic and friendly. On the two hour trip from Brisbane city to Springbrook National Rainforest (where we would be bushwalking), Ed talked to all of us. He asked a lot of questions, and because of that, everyone on the bus got to know each other a bit before the tour began, which was awesome. I got lucky - the people on the bus (from Manchester, Northern Australia, North Dakota and China) were all very friendly and fun, and I knew it would be an exciting day.

Around 10am, we stopped the bus for our first brief walk, through the forest to a natural arch.  During the walk, Ed pointed out a plant to us known as the "Gimpy Gimpy".  This is an Aboriginal name; it's important to note that there are over 500 different Aboriginal tongues, but one thing each of these languages have in common is that in any Aboriginal language, when they want to emphasize the meaning of a word, they repeat it twice. Gimpy is an Aboriginal word for pain - and the Gimpy Gimpy apparently delivers just that.  The large flat leaves of the plant are framed by hundreds tiny, nearly invisible needles that break off into the skin on contact. The pain is said to be incredible - described by one guide as being stabbed with needles dipped in acid.  And it's not brief - the pain can last for up to six months if the needles aren't removed - most commonly now, if someone is unfortunate enough to brush past a Gimpy Gimpy, wax hair removal strips are used to pull the needles.  For the rest of the day, we would walk past several signs warning of the Gimpy Gimpy - I memorized the look of it and made sure to steer clear.

The Gimpy Gimpy - Look out!


We walked further into the rainforest, passing Strangler Figs and Wait-A-While Palms (so-named because if you brush past one, they have tiny little hooks that dig into your clothing, and everyone else needs to wait a while as you disentangle yourself).  Finally we came to one of the first highlights of our walk, the Natural Arch.   I wish the pictures below did it justice, this beautiful bridge made by millions of years of water flow (it widens roughly 1-3 cm every 100 years).  According to our guide, the initiation for the lifeguards at surfers paradise is to jump through the top and down into the water (roughly 3 meters deep).  You couldn't pay me enough! 

We walked further past the arch and climbed toward the top so we could see over it, and on the way our guide stopped suddenly, very excited because he caught sight of a funnel-web spider.  The funnel-web spider is the second most dangerous spider in the world - I already knew this thanks to my very intelligent nephew Calvin, who was filled with information about Australia's deadliest creatures when I saw him on my recent trip to LA.  I got a picture - it's very hard to see the spider but you can see the web alright - I didn't want to get too close.  Ed told us that they've developed an antidote to the funnel-web's venom, but I didn't want to have to verify the accuracy of that statement. 

The funnel web - look where the light is shining

We hiked back to the bus, and then made a stop at a place called the Forest of Dreams.  It was really pretty, similar to a lot of the other rainforest pictures I have; but the coolest part of this trip was a walk through the glow worm cave.  Basically, you walk through this pitch dark cave - and I mean, pitch dark; you have to hold the rail the whole time since you can't see 3 inches in front of your face.  But all around the cave are these blue glowing lights - glow worms, weaving their little silk webs.  It was really incredible; unfortunately I don't have any pictures. They don't allow cameras in the glow worm cave because if a flash were to accidentally go off, the glow worms would think it was daytime and they'd turn off their little blue lights.  Anyway - that was really neat.

Our next stop was another mountain where we were going to have a picnic lunch.  Ed told us to feel free to walk around during the 40 minutes it was going to take for him to prepare our sandwiches and salads.  We walked as a group to the lookout for Purlingbrook Falls - a really stunning view. If you look toward the top of the waterfall you can see a rainbow going through it - I wish the pictures I took could do it justice - it was spectacular to see.

Realizing we still had 40 minutes to kill, I decided to wander off on my own, down a path near the lookout for the waterfall. The path was beautiful, though steep on one side down the mountain; for a minute or two I questioned the wisdom of walking alone, but I figured since there had been lots of people around near the lookout, I'd likely run into others on the path. I took the picture below to give you a sense of the steep drop off the path, though again, the picture doesn't quite capture it.

About a half mile along the path, I saw a huge, black lizard-like creature crawl across about 2 yards ahead of me; I grabbed my camera and tried to get a picture, and although I could see him clearly, the angle of the sun and his position in the shadows made it useless to photograph him.  As I was trying, I realized that I didn't know anything about this lizard and whether or not he would appreciate my trying to take his photograph, which made me sufficiently nervous and I decided to walk on. 

After walking a while, caught up in the amazing views that were everywhere (like the one above)
I realized I had been walking consistently downhill and that I hadn't passed a single other soul, and the path before me was becoming at times difficult to cross because of large roots or vines that grew across it.  I looked at my phone and realized I'd been walking for 25 minutes in this direction. I started to get nervous about being out there alone, and so I turned around and made my way back up.  On the way, another creature crossed my path - a huge iguana - this time just 3 feet away.  I was able to get his picture as he crawled up a tree - look towards the bottom of the tree in the middle and you will see him:

Although I was late, I met up with the rest of the group, and we had a quick lunch before making our way to our final stop.  Ed explained that we were about to go on our longest hike - a little over two hours, down a mountain to a place called twin falls.  He explained that since the weather has been really dry the last 10 years or so, there's really only one waterfall now - but it was still something to see.  We walked quickly, and at times the path was very narrow, covered with heavy roots and rocks.  We asked Ed if anyone had ever fallen down off the paths on these trips - and he replied "yeah, a few people" but did not elaborate further.  For this reason, I didn't take many pictures on the way down, because I was entirely focused on keeping my footing.  I did get this one, just a remarkable view:

Another exciting thing happened - as we were first starting down the path, a huge python slithered across it in front of us.  We were shocked - snakes are supposed to be hibernating this time of year, and Ed said that this guy was absolutely the biggest snake he'd ever seen, ever - here are a few pics, though we had to be quick because he disappeared down the mountain within a minute:

After walking a little over an hour, we finally made it to twin falls.  We hung out down there for about an hour, taking more pictures.  The one below left is me standing on a rock in front of the falls; unfortunately I don't think the falls come out clearly; as with all my pictures, just so much more beautiful in person.  The one on the right is taken from behind the waterfall. 

Finally, it was time to make our way up the mountain.  It was a longer, tougher walk back up, but I really enjoyed it.  Along the way we all chatted amiably and laughed and I learned a lot about these really cool people I was spending the day with, and the places they've visited.  I now hope to one day visit Australia's Northern Territory, as well as Vietnam - which they all said was a must-see.  I took one final picture before we got to the top, exhausted and ready to head back to Brisbane.  It was such an incredible, wonderful day of exploring.  What a beautiful, beautiful world this is.
 


Work, work...and Koalas! (July 21-23)

Monday and Tuesday were working days for me, so I won't say much here.  I spent a few hours visiting a boys' school with whom we would like to set up an exchange program, and because the weather wasn't great (cloudy and rainy), I decided to use the days to start prepping for the fall semester.  Fun, and more fun!  Actually, it was great to get some work done without distractions, and to make sure I didn't lose my momentum, I booked a tour for Wednesday - a Brisbane River cruise followed by time at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and was very much looking forward to it.   

Wednesday started beautifully.  The sun was back, and the weather a cool, breezy 65.  I started the day with another amazing morning run by the river; I've already grown attached to that run and I'm going to miss it when I leave.  The cruise itself was to depart from the South Bank, near where the Food and Wine Festival was this weekend, so I decided to walk there.

The cruise itself was lovely; it took just over an hour to get from our departure point to the Sanctuary, and along the way our tour guide pointed out the various sights along the river.  The 12 miles or so of river we traveled were lined with beautiful homes and gorgeous landscapes.  I learned that many of these homes had been badly damaged by a severe flood that ravaged Brisbane in 2011; to look at the coastline now, you wouldn't know there'd been any kind of flood at all.  I didn't get many pictures, unfortunately, but hopefully these will give you some idea of the beauty of the Brisbane River.

On the way, we were treated to a little information about Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  It is the largest koala sanctuary in the world - founded in 1927 by a man named Claude Reed, who was concerned about protecting the endangered species.  He filled the land with eucalyptus trees, and started with two koalas, Jack and Jill.  Now, the sanctuary houses over 130 koalas, as well as kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes and wombats.  I could not wait to get there.

When we arrived, as we exited and walked up the hill to the sanctuary, we were met by this guy:

I don't know if you can see him - he's some kind of lizard creature - I saw a few more crawling around throughout the sanctuary but they were very hard to get pictures of because they blend in so well with the scenery.  Then, once we entered, we saw the koalas. They were everywhere! In open pens, on trees - I got lots of pictures.  The older koalas were in the "retirement" pen, the baby koalas in the "kindergarten" pen.  They are so beautiful - here are a few shots:

I immediately went over to the area where they let visitors hold koalas (there's a fee, of course - but the money goes to the sanctuary, and heck, you get to hold a koala, so who cares?).  When it was my turn to hold the koala the worker placed my hands together flat, at waist level, and told me to hold firmly but not to move once she handed me the koala.  She then introduced me to him - his name was Hugo - and put him into my arms.  He was lovely!! He put his little koala hands on me and looked up at me with his beautiful koala eyes, and I just fell in love!

After a few minutes I had to give him back, sadly.  But that koala love stayed with me for the rest of the day :) and I headed over to see the kangaroos.  This was really neat - the kangaroos, along with ostriches and ducks, are in this wide open pen.  They walk right up to the visitors - I could have bought kangaroo feed but decided against it since I find the idea of hand feeding animals a little nerve-wrecking.  I did pet a few though - really, really wild.  This guy walked right up to me - I'm sure he thought I had food.  They are just adorable!

I saw lots of other animals at the Koala Preserve.  I saw wombats:

Sleeping Tasmanian Devils:

And more kangaroos - like this mother and her joey:

After a few hours, it was time to go.  I was sorry to leave; I could have stayed there and wandered around all day - such a beautiful, quiet place.  We got back onto the boat to head back, and I took this last picture - I'm so in love with this country and its beauty.  I can't wait to see what's next.

Weekend in Brisbane (July 19-20)

It was a really lovely weekend in Australia.  I woke Saturday very early, and watched the sunrise from my apartment window. Here's some pictures though I don't think they really do justice to the view.

After an early morning run, I went back to the apartment for coffee (I'm getting better with the French press, but I still really miss my Keurig.)  I had no plans, so I decided to use Google to see if there was anything happening in Brisbane, and sure enough, there was! The "Regional Flavors Festival" was on for the weekend, just a short walk down and over the river on the South Bank.  The festival was entirely free and open to the public, so I decided to go figuring I could grab something to eat and see a little more of the city once again. 

The weather was perfect once again, a cool breezy sunny 65, as I made my way over to the festival.  I stopped to take a few pictures on my way over the Goodwill bridge, and I could already hear music coming from the South Bank.

The festival was huge, and it spanned the entire park.  In several areas, there was live music playing, and there were tents everywhere, selling food from the local restaurants, spices, nuts, chocolates, ice cream, cheese, wine and produce from various regions around Queensland.  I wandered around for a bit along the riverwalk first, and happened upon the local pool, beautiful and open to the public - there were a few folks in the water and sunning themselves, and I took a few pics before moving on:

My first stop at the festival was the "Eat, Drink, Show" tent. Here, various Australian celebrity chefs were doing demonstrations.  I caught a demo by a chef named Miguel Maestre from a program called "The Living Room."  He was extremely funny and entertaining, and he demonstrated a paella that smelled outrageously good and churros (which will always make me think of my brother Peter and his family, and our wonderful adventure in Disneyland).


By the time he was done, I was starving. I headed over to where the food booths were, and it was quite crowded.  I walked through the wine tents first, and wished Jeannie and mom were with me; we would have had a blast tasting our way through that section. But before I wanted wine, I wanted to eat.  It was hard to decide, but I finally chose "Super Butcher", in part because they were serving Australian-style food, and in part because they had such a long line I figured the food must be good, and it was.  I had a pulled pork sandwich - but it wasn't like the southern bbq pulled pork you'd get in the states.  The shredded pork was really well seasoned, but there was no bbq sauce or vinegar; instead, they poured a smooth sweet apple sauce over the pork; the sandwich was incredible!  To wash it down, I went back to the wine tents, and chose to buy a glass from O'Reilly's vineyards, since I'd been to their Rainforest the day before.  Again, good choice, and note to self - the 2011 O'Reilly Cabernet Sauvignon is excellent.

After wandering around for hours, and resisting the urge to buy bags of really delicious looking chocolate, I decided to head back to the hotel.  On the way, I took a little video of the street crossing buttons/sounds I wrote about the other day. 

Sunday was fairly uneventful.  Another beautiful morning river run, followed by Church at St. Stephen's Cathedral.  Before I left for Australia, Uncle Jim Duhig told me that many of the Duhigs settled in Brisbane (my mother's family name is Duhig, to be clear).  One member of that family had become the Archbishop of Brisbane - James Duhig. For this reason, I was particularly interested to go to mass at the Cathedral, where this very distant cousin had once been the leader of the diocese. 

The Cathedral is very modern inside, though of course I didn't take pictures in Church.  I was curious to see if attending mass in Australia would be different, and it was - in three ways.  First, they sing. A lot.  A lot more than we sing. I'm not a fan of the singing, and I think we sing a lot, but they sing more.  A lot more.  Second, there's incense. A ton of incense. Incense when the priest enters, incense when he reads the gospel, incense during the consecration, at one point the altar server steps out into the aisle and releases even more incense.  Not a huge fan of incense either, just to be clear; my head was pounding by the time mass was finished. The third difference is that there are no cushions on the kneelers, just really, really hard wood. My knees were screaming early in, and although I saw that quite a few people stopped kneeling fairly quickly, I felt the need to prove myself by hanging in there and kneeling right up until the very last possible moments.  I'm not sure what I was trying to prove, but I left church with bruised knees, and a pounding headache.  And that's Catholic mass in Australia.

After church I wandered a bit more before coming back to the room to get some work done.  I wandered through the botanical gardens - until now I'd only seen them from the river side.  There are more pictures below - Brisbane is truly a beautiful, beautiful city.



Tamborine Mountain & O'Reilly's Rainforest (July 18)

Having toured on my own the last few days, I decided it was time to book a guided tour, so the night before I booked a ticket for the O’Reilly’s Rainforest/Lamington National Park Tour.  At about 7:30am, I walked out the door to the hotel to another gorgeous morning in Brisbane, about 55, fair and sunny, though a bit windy. The driver for the tour picked me up in a white mini bus, and we made our way around the city, picking up more tourists at local hotels, before heading to the central transit depot, where the group split onto various buses and got underway. 

Our first stop was to be about an hour outside of Brisbane, where we were to split up into two groups, one headed to the Gold Coast, and the other, like me, headed to O’Reilly’s Rainforest.  On the way to this stop, our first tour guide, Bob, spoke a little about the various sights. Unfortunately I missed a lot of what Bob said, as I was seated across from an extremely loud, friendly and loquacious older Asian man from California who immediately turned to me to chat as the trip got underway. As a result, I didn’t learn much about Australia on the drive, however, I did learn that this gentleman owned many clothing factories, that he thought New Zealand was much nicer than Australia, that he has a daughter who is a doctor who was valedictorian of Irvine High School and a full-scholarship student at UCLA, that she married another doctor who graduated from Cornell, that they both currently live in San Diego, that he sells clothes and sporting goods primarily to Dick’s Sporting Goods, that his business is expanding, and that he has distribution deals in the works for Singapore, New Zealand and Western Australia.  I hope you found all that information as interesting and useful as I did.

A very long hour after departing Brisbane, we arrived at our rendezvous point. I exited the bus with two British women and one young Frenchman who looked remarkably like Rowan Atkinson.  We were greeted by David, our tour guide, a very skinny, sunburned Australian in full safari gear.  We all liked him instantly.  I waved goodbye to my Asian friend before getting onto the second van, and our tour was underway.  I noticed a few road signs right away: wallaby and koala crossing signs, both of which I hoped to see, and a sign indicating a high danger of fires, which I fervently hoped not to see. 

David was fascinating and extremely knowledgeable.  Along the lovely and scenic 45 minute drive to Tamborine Mountain, I learned quite a bit that was interesting. For one, Australia is full of macadamia nut trees. They aren't from Hawaii; in fact, Hawaii didn’t start producing macadamia until the 1920s, with trees they imported from Australia. I also learned it’s not a good idea to eat off the trees, as there are two species which are poisonous.  Australians also grow papaya, banana, and avocado in these mountains – we passed many groves along the way but unfortunately the pics from the bus are too fuzzy to share.    

David told us that “koala” is an aboriginal word for “no drink water”, as koala get most of their liquid nourishment from eucalyptus leaves.  Also, “kangaroo” is an aboriginal phrase meaning “I don’t know”.  Apparently, once upon a time in Sydney, a British officer, on first seeing such a creature, turned to his Aboriginal guide and asked what the animal was called.  The guide, not knowing the proper name, said as much: “gan ga roo”.  To this, the British officer replied, “Ah, yes, kangaroo”, which is how the animal received his name, though the Aboriginals refer to the animals by another name.  I'm not sure if this story is true, but I certainly enjoyed hearing it.

We arrived at our first stop, Tamborine Mountain. We had about an hour to wander around, so I wandered directly into the Tamborine Winery for a tasting.  The young woman who did the tasting for me was lovely, and the wine was lovely too, though very expensive (bottles ranging from $35 and up).  I noted the wine I liked best (a 2010 Shiraz Cabernet), thanked her, and wandered around the Tamborine Gallery shops.  I went into Grannie Mac’s fudge shop, because the name made me think of mom, and a few other souvenir spots, before heading back to the bus.  Some pics of the Tamborine Mountain Gallery shops are below.

 

 

 

While waiting for the bus, the two British women, Caroline and Debbie, introduced themselves to me.  They said they had wondered where my husband was (no comment) and invited me if I wished to stick with them for the journey, suspiciously eyeing the odd Frenchman as they did.  Truly they were lovely women and I thanked them kindly, and we had a brief chat about nothing much before getting back onto the bus for the main attraction, O’Reilly’s rainforest.

Before getting to the O'Reilly rainforest, we made a brief stop at an alpaca farm on the mountain.  Below are pics of David, bringing out Roy the alpaca, and me posing with Roy the alpaca.  There's not much else to say about the alpaca farm:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving on.  I had thought that O’Reilly was an odd name for a rainforest, and I’d been hoping for an explanation.  After leaving the alpaca farm, David told us the story of the O’Reilly family.  The O’Reilly boys were are a group of eight brothers, who in 1912 took the Australian government up on its offer for land in the McPherson Range.  No one else took the government up on the offer, as the land was on the top of a mountain, through miles of thick forest, none of which had been cleared.  But the brothers, hearty men, decided to make a go of it.

They spent weeks upon weeks making their way up the mountain, where they cleared some land and began farming. Although they were able to sustain themselves with farming and raising cows, they made no money, as the milk they hoped to sell didn’t survive the three day trip down the mountain to where the buyers were.  In 1915, their luck turned.  The Australian government decided to turn the rest of the land in the area into a National Park (Lamington National Park), and that the brothers could keep their land.  Suddenly, the men had prime real estate smack in the middle of a tourist attraction.  They turned their section of Rainforest into a park and guest house for tourists, and have had a thriving business ever since. 

The most interesting story around the O’Reilly Rainforest centers on a plane crash.  In 1937, a Stinson airliner went missing en route from Brisbane to Sydney.  News of the crash reached the O’Reilly brothers a week after the disappearance.  Most had thought the plane had gone down nearer Sydney, but Bernard O’Reilly thought differently, and so decided to set out to look for the wreckage. After three days and nights, O’Reilly came upon the crash site. Although four men and one woman had died, two badly injured men had somehow survived for 10 days. They told O’Reilly of a third survivor who had escaped injury and had gone to get help.  O’Reilly assisted the two men, fed them, gave them tea (in true Australian fashion), and went on down the mountain to report the location of the wreck.  On his way, he found the body of the third man, who had died falling over a waterfall on his way to seek rescue  Bernard O’Reilly made it down the mountain, found help, and the survivors were ultimately rescued.  The story was eventually made into an Australian film called Miracle on the Mountain, which I noted

We finally arrived at the top of the mountain.  I thought I had dressed appropriately, in jeans and a sweatshirt, but the unusually high winds (40-50 knots, by David’s estimation) made the air feel much colder.  Shivering, I pulled up my hood and we set out onto the path into the rainforest:

 

David turns out to be exceptionally knowledgeable about plant and wildlife, and the tour is fascinating.  Of the many interesting trees and plans he points out, a few really stand out to me.  One is a small tree with a flat wide leaf which we are told to avoid (they have been cleared from the areas nearest the path).  The leaves have pointy needles on the edges which sting when touched – David describes the pain as excruciating, as though the needles on the leaves had been dipped in acid.  He laughingly reminds us that Australia is home to many of the world’s most dangerous plants, insects and animals, points out that his long johns are tucked into his socks, and we continue our trek.  Comforting. 

Another really interesting tree is the strangler fig (at least, I believe that’s what he called it.)  The tree begins as small vines, which creep from the top of the canopy down and around a healthy tree.  Over hundreds of years, vine after vine grows down around the tree, feeding off the tree and strangling it.  Eventually, over hundreds of years, the large vines completely surround the host tree, effectively strangling it and feeding off the decomposing body.  Because the roots are vines they become very thin, yet strong, as they enter the ground.

  
 

 

David told us this tale of the stranglers with such reverence and awe it felt quite a bit like hearing a ghost story – and I felt chills as I gazed at these immense strangler trees which had entirely swallowed their poor victims.  We came upon a very large strangler fig and were able crawl in and look inside – it’s completely hollow. I was unable to get a good photo of the inside – but here’s a view of my British friend Caroline having a look:

 

 

 

Next we made it to the canopy walk. Oh my goodness.  Though only about 90 meters in length, the walk is terrifying.  The bridge is a wooden suspension bridge, and if you have the courage to look down, you can see through the slats below to the floor of the forest.  The warning signs point out that the bridge can't hold more than 6 people per span, and that it's not a good idea to bounce on the walkway.  Noted.  The bridge itself is wobbly, even more so with the exceptionally high winds – I tried to take a video, but within a few feet I put my camera away so I could firmly grip the sides, and nervously made my way back to land. 

After the canopy walk, I was freezing, so David offered me a hug (hmmm, awkward) and then told the others to go on as he offered to bring me back to the guest house to warm up (hmmmm, awkward).  I did feel better once we were inside, had a little lunch (an Australian beefburger with beetroot and onion relish – actually quite good) and some wonderfully warming hot chocolate.

After lunch I went back out to wander on my own, to burn off the burger. I headed back to the path, thinking walking very briskly would keep me warm, and anyway I wanted to burn of the calories from the big lunch. I went back in the way we had entered, and made my way to the point where we had left the others, wanting to see what I had missed and grateful to be on my own for a bit.  Walking quickly did indeed keep me warm, and I came to a spot where a dirt path ventured off from the main path. 

 

Curious, I decided to follow the dirt path.  About 10 minutes in, I realized I couldn’t hear any people, but I could hear lots of creepy rainforest sounds.  I also remembered that Australia was  home to some of the most dangerous plants and animals in all the world.  I decided maybe going off alone on the dirt path wasn’t the wisest idea – and headed back to the main path again.

Once I found my way back to the main path, I took a lovely walk through the mountain gardens. I came upon the 1937 Stinson crash memorial, and sat there for a minute and tried absorb the fact that I was in Australia wandering through a garden in the middle of a rainforest on top of a mountain. Pretty awesome indeed.

 

I made my way back to the guesthouse, and snapped a few pictures of the replica of the 1937 Stinson airliner that had crashed, as well as of some beautiful friendly birds.  I don’t know the name of the big black one is some kind of Australian turkey - I can't remember the name, and the gorgeous red and blue bird is the crimson rosella.  I watched as they landed on the heads and shoulders of the tourists that were feeding them, thought how adorable that was, and then backed away quickly because I did not want one landing on my head.

  

By the time we got back onto the bus it was about 3:00, and I was exhausted.  I settled in for the drive back to Brisbane and nearly shut my eyes when Debbie, one of my British friends, shouted “wallaby!’  and sure enough, out the window there was a wallaby.  No, two wallabies.  No, an entire family of wallabies!  We snapped some pictures of the adorable mini-kangaroos, and got to watch a few hopping around before making our way home:


 

 

 

 

We met Bob and the other tourists around 5, and as I got on the bus the friendly Asian man greeted me loudly and I smiled as I moved past him and sat as far away as I could.  I worried he’d come back to sit with me, but thankfully he had engaged two unsuspecting South Africans and chatted loudly to them for the drive back to Brisbane.  By 6:30, Bob dropped me off at my hotel – it was already dark out, and I was exhausted but smiling.  What a wonderful, wonderful day.