2020-03-03 – Tamborine National Park and the Gold Coast

It's a sunny day and a great day for sightseeing in the countryside.  We headed to the Tamborine National Park for a bit of waterfalls, viewpoints and hiking.  First order of business was getting out of the parking lot.  The guest parking spots were few and far between when we parked last night.  The only one we found was so narrow that we couldn’t open the front doors.  So Mary got out of the car, Paul parked it and then crawled over the seats to get to the back seat and out.  So today was the reverse.  He had to crawl over the seats to get into the front seat.

However, once we were out of the parking spot everything went well.  Our first stop in Tamborine was Cedar Creek with its very pretty falls. 

There were people swimming in one of the pools near the base of the falls.  One man bravely climbed the rocks and jumped (back-flipped) into the pool.

We also found a Skywalk that hadn’t been mentioned in the guidebooks.  It was a private operation in the National Park and they did a very good job with signage and maintaining the trails.  

Giant Strangler Fig

There were both the Skywalk...

as well as regular trails through the woods.

We very much enjoyed it.  

Parts of the park were filled with the sounds of cicadas and lots of unseen birds.  We did see a Brush Turkey, also called a Scrub Turkey. 

After a lovely, but hot walk we treated ourselves to iced chocolates.  Yummy.

Then it was on to explore a bit more.  The next hike was to Curtis Falls.  In the parking lot we saw a kookaburra on a picnic table.

The walk was shady and reasonably cool (for Queensland).  The walk took us along a stream...

to the falls, small but pretty.

Along the way Paul saw a water dragon lazing in the hollowed-out trunk of a tree.

One of the nearby lookouts gave us a great view of the valleys and flatlands below the mountains.

We could also see Brisbane in the distance.

We decided to extend the day of sightseeing by heading down to the Gold Coast with its many beaches.  We went out to Burleigh Point, location of a world class surfing beach.  There were some great swimming holes tucked into the rocks…

and lots of surfers out.

However, the real treat was the large number of Rainbow Lorikeets loudly feeding in the trees.  We got lots of photos of them…

as well as a blue-faced honeyeater

and a crested pigeon.

We moved along to Snapper Rock where the surfing continued. 

Plus we had views of Brisbane in the distance. 

Great Day.  We were back in Brisbane for dinner.  We walked down to the Foundation Area for dinner.  We had heard good things about the area. We picked one of the few restaurants we could find and it was a bad choice.  Tasteless Indian Butter Chicken (Indian food is almost impossible to make tasteless, but they did) and soggy pizza.  Oh, well.  The rest of the day was great.