Brisbane & Springbrook National Park

We woke up early (about 5:30) since the sun rises so early with standard time and spent the morning shopping for a couple of days in the mountains.
After lunch, we drove south about 60 km (as the crow flies) to Springbrook National Park (a part of Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Site) where sister-in-law Kathy is doing a research project on dung beetles.  (Actually, she is staying at the adjacent, privately owned Ankida Nature Reserve.). The national park is very fragmented with private ownership of most of the ridges and park ownership of the escarpment walls and many of the isolated, forested valleys.  As we went up in the mountains, the temperature dropped about 15 C, which was a welcome respite from the heat in Brisbane.  The only item of concern is that Kathy says there are snakes, leeches and ticks--I think I'll stick to long pants!  Kathy has a beautiful place to stay for her research, with room for all of us, so it's almost like a couple of days in resort.  After arrival, we took a short hike to a gorgeous waterfall called Peregrine Falls and along the way saw wild "gardens" of Christmas orchids.  At dinner, we enjoyed a beautiful chorus of two kinds of cicadas and various birds.

This is as close to the edge as we could get at the falls.  Since this is not in the park and has no general tourist access, there are no formal viewpoints nor railings near the cliff.

Panoramic view from the top of the Peregrine Falls.

The Christmas orchids.

The next morning (Friday, inauguration day) we were up relatively early.  It was bit foggy so not as bright, but it cleared up some through the day.  After breakfast, we went with Kathy to check her dung beetle traps where she retrieved numerous specimens.  Along the way we all learned a lot about the little guys, their dietary preferences and how to trap them (at least Wesley and Susan did;  much of it was a bit over my head)--Kathy is quite passionate about poo and the beetles!  We also encountered a number of leeches, three of which I had to remove from myself--no ticks or snakes (yet!).

Inspecting one of the dung traps.  Kathy uses dung bait and rotting mushroom bait to attract different varieties of beetles.

We then left for some sightseeing and bush walking in the vicinity.  The first stop was "Best of All" lookout, a strange name that implies all of our later lookout points were somehow deficient.  It really was a wonderful view and the track to the view point passed through a temperate rain forests fragment.  One interesting specimen was the Antarctica Beech tree, a tree that goes back to the time of the proto-continent Gondwana.  (The super continent that existed before the current continents split and drifted apart.)  The lookout was right on the QLD-NSW border and we were looking mostly south into New South Wales across an ancient caldera.   Australia is not active volcanically, but has much vulcanism in its history.

Looking out across the ancient caldera.  One of the peaks in the near distance is actually the center of the caldera.  The far edge is indistinct due to haze.

Susan at the base of the Antarctica Beech tree.  The height and surrounding canopy prevented getting an overall view of the tree. 

The next stop was Purling Brook Falls which where we took a 4 km circle track.  We got to see the 100-m-tall falls from both the top and the bottom and were also able to experience a eucalyptus forest on the ridge and a semi-tropical rain forest in the valley below.  Before 2015, the trail actually passed behind the falls, but construction of a bridge below the falls made the old path redundant and it has been closed.  The track had several beautiful overlooks and we saw a couple of lizards along the way.  Seeing wildlife in Australia seems to be the expectation rather than the exception and our viewing has been aided greatly by the sharp eyes of our niece, Brianna.  Again (fortunately), we did not encounter snakes, but the sign at the trailhead warned of several dangers, including falling rocks, falls from cliffs and snake called the Common Death Adder--just what you want to encounter, eh?

Purling Brook Falls from near the start of the walk.  

At the base of the falls.  The horizontal rock ledge even with the top of Wesley's head is the old track passing behind the waterfall.

After lunch, we set off for Canyon Lookout point, stopping at a fudge shop for afternoon "tea."  We decided that chocolate could easily substitute for tea today.  From the lookout, we could see two waterfalls (Rainbow Falls and Twin Falls), the typical rain forest canopy in the valley and the Gold Coast in the distance.  The Gold Coast is a trendy, high-rise, surfing/beach resort area on the Pacific coast south of Brisbane.  The high-rises seemed like an intrusion on the idyllic landscape and almost mirage-like in the distant haze.  I can't in all honesty report that we saw the ocean itself through the haze, but since we knew that it was there, we could sort of make it out.  One thing that is hard to get used to is having the Pacific Ocean to the east rather than west.

Rainbow Falls towards the right of the photo with the semi-tropical rain forest below and the Eucalyptus forest at the top of the cliffs.  You may be able to spot some a few palms below.

Same outlook point as the previous photo, but looking more to the NE.  You can see the Gold Coast high-rises in the distance to the left.

We had another serenade at dinner with the added bonus of an approaching storm with thunder/lightening.  The storm is predicted to drop temperatures in Brisbane by about 8-10 C, so it is quite a welcome development.  Tomorrow it will back to Brisbane.