Forests and farewells....

I'm writing this from Sydney! I had hoped to update you before we left Brisbane but the practicalities like last minute errands, cleaning and packing took over I'm afraid!

 

Crack and I had a busy week making the most of Brisbane before we left. We went to some of his favourite spots and took the boat a lot. I don't know what he's going to do without a daily trip on a ferry! Poor kid, Thatcham will seem dull! And cold!

But summer weather was definitely starting our last week in Brisbane, we had an amazing thunderstorm almost everyday and the humidity was noticeably higher than it has been. It's a bit cooler here in Sydney and not nearly so humid, which is nice.

 

So I know Crack has already told you a lot about what we did last week, the highlight for him definitely being the Maritime Museum.... I think I'll tell you more about my favourite bits

Last Thursday night we had dinner at Tom and Ali's, our housemates from St Andrews, and their two little boys. They've got a lovely neighbourhood and a lot of toys, so the boys played happily and we got down to chatting! Tom cooked a mean Mexican dinner and it was really good to see them again before we left...the official photos leave a little to be desired but you can see we had fun, I hope!?

Sam took this one for us! A good job - considering it was pretty dark and he was using my phone!

 

My other favourite thing last week was our trip to the rainforest! We drove down to Springbrook National Park early on Saturday morning (well, I say early....by the time we had breakfast, filled the car up and got past the accident on the freeway we arrived about 10:30!). Luckily we managed to avoid any of the potential circus surrounding I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which was starting the next day and being filmed just a few km from our walk!

 

We stopped at Purling Brook Falls, had a look from a couple of viewpoints at the top and then headed down the edge of the ancient volcano, into the rainforest, to the bottom of the falls and on to Warringa pool where we had a picnic lunch. It was very hot and humid and there were hundreds of steps, but it was beautiful rainforest, dense and full of life, as you can see and hear by clicking this link. On the way back up a thunderstorm rolled in, but as the canopy was dense we hardly got wet, Crack slept through it!

The top of Purling Brook Falls

Looking over the edge

You can see the path at the bottom just at the edge of the trees towards the middle of the picture above.

The view down the valley and towards the coast and Surfers Paradise

The falls from above

Dragonflies everywhere!

The falls from below...too tall to fit in the photo! Actually goes down about another ten metres!

Some beautiful forest giants! Emergent trees covered in epiphytes and strangler vines and fungi!

Our destination, Warringa pool, we picnicked on the rocks to the right of the falls and headed back up the hill as the thunder started!

Back at the top, very hot and sweaty but wonderful walk in a beautiful place!

Afterwards we got back in the car and headed up the hill to the Best of All Lookout. On its day, the view is said to be spectacular......

But when you get there just after a thunderstorm, it looks more like this!

This one is Pie's panoramic shot lol!

 

Never mind, it was a lovely, if drippy, atmospheric walk to the lookout!

We finished a lovely day with a drive down a minor road full of paddymelons (tiny wallabies) to a specialty fudge shop that served great coffee! Lovely! Not so lovely was Pie and I discovering that we had each acquired a solitary leech! yuck!

 

And back in Brisbane, watched a gorgeous sunset/moonrise, which my camera phone could not do justice to! It couldn't even capture the full moon...

After that, time flew by in a haze of packing and cleaning, interrupted by a wonderful make your own pizza party at Pie's host Nancy's beautiful house. Good food, great company, and Crack behaved brilliantly, despite pushing his chair straight over backwards in the middle of dinner and staying up until 10pm (beating last week's record!)!

We enjoyed a last dinner on the 11th floor balcony last night.

And this morning we said goodbye to Brisbane and StradbrokeTower which has been such a pleasure to live in for the last 2 months!

We had one last glimpse of the city as we flew south to Sydney

 

Now I'm off to bed in the hope that my head cold will have lifted in time to enjoy the cliff walk between Bondi and Coogee beach in the morning....fingers crossed!