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Published: June 18th 2009
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Day 51 - Mount Tamborine
Clearly we won’t be publicly admitting that our limbs were aching some what when we woke this morning, obviously being such fit and dedicated hikers neither of us are feeling any ill effects after yesterdays vertical excursion. Cough, splutter!
Another bright day dawns on Tamborine Mountain and today we thought we’d head over to Lamington National Park to explore their tree top walk and check out the famous O’Reillys guesthouse. The 90 minute journey takes us down the 15 degree single track mountain road and then up through hairpin, winding, single track, seriously steep, seriously rugged mountain scenery until we reach the Green Mountains section of the park. The views are stunning and looking across the valleys it’s hard to believe that the commercialisation of Surfers Paradise is only a 45 minute drive away! It’s like a lost world up here, very “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here” type scenery but it’s a wonder they want to leave it’s just so wonderful. There are lots of bush walks here including the 21km border track which follows the dividing range between NSW and Queensland but we instead opt for the shorter tree top walk because
we are of course wimps!
The walk is excellent and includes a 20 then 30 metre clamber up two ladders so you really are ‘tree top height’! It’s an established walkway with a series of rope and plank suspension bridges, so doesn’t feel or look quite as stable as some of the modern metal walkways you see but the more it rocks the more exciting it is! Looking out from the top of the 30 metre ladder climb our view is a little bit blocked by the foliage but we can still see Mount Warning standing proud and tall in the distance! Back down on solid ground we explore the Botanical gardens and then head to O’Reillys for a coffee. There’s plenty of bird life in the trees above us but we don’t manage to spy a Regent Bowerbird. We do see a good variety though and we see a Pademelon sitting in the sunny clearing! We’ve enjoyed our quick visit to Lamington and on our way back down the winding mountain roads we pull over for lunch and even manage to up load two of the previous blogs. They all get written daily but not necessarily uploaded! It’s
a bit like the postcard writing, they all get written in the right places but not necessarily posted!!! Lunch was great, a fantastic view across the mountains and we were only just off the road but completely hidden in the bush so we couldn’t hear any traffic and it couldn’t see us!
Just as we came back to Cunungra we spied a “Historic Tunnel” sign which seemed a bit of an odd thing to advertise so we decided to have a quick look! We did indeed find the Laheys Canungra Tramway Tunnel which was originally built back in the 1890’s. The tunnel greatly reduced the cost of log haulage and where it might not be the most advertised piece of history for the area it was a huge undertaking by the family all those years ago. Just imagine how much effort it must have taken to tunnel through solid sandstone 100m long! It was later used as an ammunition dump during the WWII years of conflict.
After our short diversion we’re back on the road to Tamborine and stop off at the Botanical Gardens. Somebody had put a lot of thought, time and effort into these gardens, they
are really stunning and provide another haven for the birdlife. Darryl finds an eel in one of the ponds and there are of course Kookaburras in the tree overhead! It’s so tranquil and in the summer must be a vibrant array of colour.
We have a quick walk through Tamborine itself and then it’s back to the camp site where we grab some ice creams and explore the creek looking for firewood! We find a well laid out BBQ area further down from where we’re camped, we think it’s where entertainment is staged in the summer months as it’s a small amphitheatre too. How fantastic and it’s right next to the creek as it babbles past! We gather quite a lot of firewood and get back to our pitch early so we can get things going as we’re cooking our favourite hopping friend again tonight, good old roo!
Night all. Dar and Sar
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Jan Kettle
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Regent Bowerbird
We were lucky enough to see a Regent Bowerbird, right by the cafe at O'Reilly's - lovely it was too. It was pouring with rain at the time though! The wildlife around Poplar Avenue is increasing all the time (seriously) - last night 3 Oystercatchers flew over and today there's been a buzzard hanging around and a kestrel flew over as well - fantastic! Of course, they can't come too close as the Tiger will get them!