Martin Travels: Rainforest Excursion

We ventured out with Barry at the wheel south-westerly and were soon climbing on narrow winding roads up a mountain range looking down into deep gorges with no guardrail. Before long the vegetation changed to lush greenery with enormous oak and pine trees, fern trees, vines with 6 inch diameter trunks and other tropical plants that seemed oversized and growing in the strangest places, such as part way up the trunks of tall trees. We had entered Springbrook National Park, and we stopped at loookouts where you can see for miles, down to Gold Coast and the Pacific Ocean, or into a millions of years old volcano cauldron, now lush with cattle grazing land and homesteads. Most of these attractions were preceeded by a walk along pathways under the rainforest canopy. We stopped to look at a waterfall that would make Hawaii jealous, and had a picnic lunch overlooked by a blue tongue lizard and visited by a pair of hungry lorikeets. See picture below. The final park attraction and the best was the 'natural bridge' formed by a waterfall disappearing into a rock cavern and coming out in a cave below complete with bats, then exiting through a cave mouth that formed the rock bridge. We left the Park and headed south into the adjoining state, New South Wales and stopped at teh Chillingham Banana Cabana, a fruit stand that had quite strange (to us) wares including finger limes which we purchased for our evening meal. We drove through towns with strange names like Nmimbah and Murwillimbah and before long, we were passing sugar cane plantations back in the coastal low lands. We stopped at the Tumbulgum Tavern on the banks of the Tweed River for an afternoon beverage before returning to Windsong for a swim (30deg.C) and a dinner of Moreland Bay bugs, purchased that morning at the local fish market. For more on rainforests, see http://www.rainforestway.com.au/