Woke up on time again, although last night was quite noisy with all the wild life around. We didn’t see any more wild life overnight, but there were some new “deposits” on the front lawn to show that there was some activity! Lyn saw some movement as we were having breakfast, she had spotted a kangaroo this time, its size was much larger than the wallabies of last night.
After breakfast we took a walk down the road in search of a geocache, yet again it defeated us, although I was a little leery of delving too far into the bush out here! As we were packing up Lyn spotted a bright yellow breasted humming beard hovering in front of an outdoor mirror admiring itself.
Today’s trip was to a gorge in Eungella National Park to see some waterfalls. We arrived at the park after fording a couple of creeks.
We then went to the Cafe for some refreshment. Lyn had a mango smoothie which was excellent, and I assume made from the locally frown mangoes. Sitting above us was a brush tail possum.
Suitably refreshed we headed off to the falls. In the parking lot we spotted Australia’s national bird the kookaburra.
We started up the trail and were soon surrounded by lush vegetation of the rain forest.
We reached the falls and the pool somewhat more breathless than when we started, the water looked inviting but we hadn’t brought our “swimmers”, others had and were jumping off the rocks.
Apart from the dragon fly there were some stunning iridescent blue butterflies fluttering around, but they wouldn’t settle long enough to be photographed.
Once we made it back to the car (today was a cooler 35C / 95F day, but the humidity had risen) we headed off for our first zip lining experience. We found the entrance, but no signs of life. We walked around a bit and saw some lines coming through the forest, there didn’t seem to be much clearway between the line and the foliage and my first thought was, this is going to hurt. After a few minutes we decided that this was probably an old attraction that had closed down, so we made our way back to the car. Just as we arrived a woman called out to us, apparently she was the owner/operator and chief dogsbody’s wife. Evidently Tom (assumed husband) had a headache and was not operating the ride today. After what we had seen I wasn’t about to offer him any aspirin.
Next order of business was fuel for the car and fuel with us. Fuel stations can be a long distance apart here and I am trying to ensure the tank is kept above half full, by this stage is was a little below half. Fuel here is expensive, around $1.60 Aus / liter ($1.50 Cdn or $4.30US / gal).
With stomachs and fuel tank satisfied we headed off to Airlie Beach. On the way we finally found a “cane train” operating on the narrow gauge railway. It had one engine at the front and two power cars at the back.
Airlie Beach is a haven foryoung backpackers, but we wanted to go and see it and also book a local cruise from here. Trying to find a cruise that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg to take you out to an island, dump you there for a few hours so that you can play ball, walk along the beach or drink yourself silly was a hard task, but one that Lyn was victorious in. More tomorrow. In the meantime I was trying to find accommodation for the night. We settled for an Ocean View apartment with balcony.
