Lamington National Park

On Sunday we drove to Lamington National Park - number 57 on someone's must do list

http://www.150mustdos.com.au/must_dos/lamington_national_park?result_13142_result_page=11 The largest subtropical rain forest in the world I read somewhere. Not sure if I believe it, but maybe. A Lamington is also a bakery treat here. I just had to look it up and it may be next on Ellis's and my to do list. Take a sponge cake, cut it into squares, pour chocolate icing on top and roll in dessicated coconut. Sounds yummy.

We timed our drive right and Rowan slept the entire way. The drive up the mountain was long and reminded both me and Cyp of the road to Hana. Switchbacks the entire way and many one lane stretches. Didn't see too many cars coming the other way thankfully. I didn't like the road much - it literally was on the edge of the mountain - no guardrail to stop one from sailing off the edge. I started to think about how high we were going and realized that I hadn't parked any warm clothes. Darn. Tanya had mentioned that they like to go there as it was cooler and a good escape from the heat. It was also raining.

We finally made it to the top (took us about an hour to drive 20 km) and piled out of the car. "What's the stinky smell?" asked Ellis. I figured we must be near some cows. It didn't dawn on me until the way home that I had driven through some rather large piles of cow poo. "it's like you were aiming for them." Cyp commented. Right. I never was very good about avoiding things on the road. I think I'm steering away from things only to find myself driving right through them. I got them on the way home too. Figure they will make a tasty treat for our ants.

Luckily it didn't rain much up the mountain. I made Cyp carry my umbrella the entire time which helped ensure it was sunny.

We walked by the bird feeing area.

"Do you want to feed the birds Ellis?"

"no" said Ellis.

Ok - they were pretty birds - see picture of said bird on blog post. I walked into the info centre to figure out what we could do and then we sat and had our lunch. Rowan was fascinated by the bush turkey and Ellis inadvertently fed the birds some of his peanut butter sandwich. I think you can guess what picture goes with that story.

We walked in the woods a bit, walked in some gardens (Ellis tried to lose us on the trails) and then did a treetop walk which was quite impressive - it gave a bit of a thrill as it did seem to need some repair and was quite high up.

I wanted to give Rowan some exercise, so I kept putting him down on the walkway but he just wanted to go and leap off the ledge (this was a raised boardwalk - not the treetop walk - believe me, he was strapped in good on that one). He loves ledges or maybe he just wanted to get at the dirt. Not sure.

Ellis decided he did want to feed the birds, but the bird feeders were on their lunch break till 2 so we had to skip. That just made him want to do it more.

On the way home we stopped in Canunga and I picked up some meat pies (best ones in Queensland - well, maybe not), being sold by an elderly Scottish born man. I got his life story - the tail end of which went like this:

"got here in 95 and have been saving up since to get home - too old now, lost my home as two of my big customers went bankrupt on me and you just can't ever get back on your feet when you're this old."

Then he proceeded to say - "have a nice holiday." at which point I said - "oh, I've moved here."

He perked up at that - "oh, you'll love it here!"

Drove the rest of the way home through towns with names like Wonglepong and Jimboomba (Cyp wondered if a three year old had done the town naming) but then we'd go through a town with a name like MacLean.

It was a good night as Border Security (the new season) was on. Hooray!