GANEIDA'S KNOT.

Go mbeannai Dia duit.

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Quaker by conviction, mother by default, Celticst through love, Christ follower because I once was lost but now am found...

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Pictures.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. Gilbert K. Chesterton


It's really hard to give a sense of the size of anything round Springbrook. The escapement is just the tip that's sheered away. When the mist rises through the valleys the landscape looks Gondawanish ~ primitive, ancient, primeval.

The Twin falls circuit has these huge waterfalls. Walking under them is part of the trail & the water is absolutely freezing! Brrr. This one can be short cutted & I did but Sian & Ditz are in there somewhere.

These ranges are part of the Great Divide that runs North/south along the eastern seaboard. When I'm walking through this rough country I always think out first explorers were ever so slightly out of their tiny English minds.
This is the first part of the Wari Track. The boulders are huge...enormouse...giagantic. You walk through caves & caverns & crevices & it is cold, cold, cold.
The sound of falling water is never far away.

Here's the 2nd of the waterfalls you have to walk under. After rain it's a real deluge.
Yep, every time Ditz caught me on camera I was parked on my butt but Sian lugged her good camera & tripod through here & I spent a lot of time waiting while she & Ditz set up *the shot of the moment.*
No. I haven't completely lost the plot & I'm not communing with nature either. If you are lucky you find crays in the pools all through the creeks. This was a particularly big one.
Rosella. These are pretty common & I don't get too excited about them but they're pretty.


We snacked at the English Tea Garden ~ run by Asians! Ditz was really taken by their floor protectors. Yes. They're tennis balls!
The gardens are pretty but badly in need of a good gardener. The weeds have badly over run the place. It is a strange mix of rainforest creek, English lawns, red Asiatic bridges & great gum trees.
This is the letter box at one of the craft shops. I thought it was pretty cool.
And this is the really cool hat I wanted to buy for Kimba but Sian wouldn't be in it. See, we were thinking of you Kimba. Want to abseil in that wheelchair down some of these cliffs with me?
These big grassy plants are Blackboys. I think these are a great plant & it's unusual to see so many of them in one place.
Sunday we walked part of the Apple Tree Farm track. This is part of *The Great Walk* which runs through the ranges along the New South Wales/ Queensland border, starting up near O'Reilly's & landing down near the Gold Coast. It takes 3 ~ 5 days to do in it's entirety. One day. Maybe.




We found paper daisies in bloom; rare.
The rainforest is subtropical & more open woodland here & it was really easy walking. Almost dead flat. This is where we found a great view looking across the valley & sat quietly in the presence of the Lord. All weekend we felt the Lord's delight in our pleasure. Like any parent he was delighted that we appreciated the treat He'd prepared for us.

Natural Arch. We walked this in drizzly rain but the arch is pretty special. Here's where we really embarrassed Ditz who promptly disassociated herself from us. The tourists were setting their camera flashes in the cave & the flash kills the glow worm larva so I went into lecture mode & told them all what's what! lol. Ditz thinks I'm embarrassing.
It rained & it stormed. The wind blew the tarp out & we retired to bed with fudge & a good book while the wind whistled & whipped about us & we giggled ourselves silly while Ditz wielded the camera like a fiend. When we took the tent down Tuesday morning we found one of the poles almost split in two. We're lucky it didn't completely come apart. That could have been interesting in the wet & dark!





















13 comments:

Molytail said...

Yay! More pictures! Awesome. Such a beautiful place - and good on you, telling the tourists what the deal was with the glow worm babies!

I've seen the tennis ball thing before - in fact, one of the schools that Christopher was first in when he was 5 had tennis balls on the supply list...yep, every kid had to bring their own for the legs of their desks LOL...sure is funny looking though!

What a pretty red & blue bird!

Heh, adorable hat. *grin*

The HoJo's said...

Wow it is gorgeous there, I can't wait for when we get permanent residency and can go on a tour (note the when, not if, I am determined to stay!)I have so many places I want to see.
xc

Constance said...

Thanks for sharing your pictures and your adventure. Like you commented on my blog recently, very different terrain. Australia is on my TO SEE list. First we are going to Alaska in a couple of years.

I could relate to setting up the tripod...my Hub is an amateur photographer so I make sure I have a book with me if we're waiting on the sun and shadows to be perfect. He and I are a good fit also when it comes to hiking. He has longer legs and can get ahead of me since I am more methodical and slow. He will stop to photograph, I catch up and by the time I have had my break, he is ready to move on. He told me recently that there isn't anyone else he'd rather go hiking with. That's quite a compliment considering he does the whole 5-6 day backpacking trips with his brothers. I am only a dayhike kind of gal at this point.
Connie

Mrs. Darling said...

One of these days Im going to come visit you. That pic of you all in the tent just appealed to a side of me that connected with you immediately. I love camping as long as I have a good air mattress.

These pics are just gorgeous. I have never seen stuff like this because Ive never been in that part of the world. Some day Im coming down there and you will have to show me around your own corner. I'll hop the ferrys with you and see what your world is all about. Oh my what fun that would be!

Britwife said...

As I scrolled through your photos, I kept muttering outloud to myself, "Wow". Breathtaking.
We went to the Sportsman's Show this past weekend (about camping, fishing, etc.) and now I can't wait until summer! (It's rather cruel that they hold that here in January - 5 months to go before we are able to DO anything!)

Ashley Dumas said...

Looks like such a lovely camping trip! The sight are breathtaking!

Ash

Sandra said...

Beautiful. I just love these glimpses of Australia. Thanks so much.

Ganeida said...

MrsD, if you ever get here I will be only too delighted to see you! :) I liked that pic too. The weather made no difference to our fun.

Hojos: how could we send you back? This was a felon's colony & you are decent human beings. This is a pretty part of Oz though.

Britwife: That's just cruel. But I think snow is cruel too.

See what you're missing Moly by not emmigrating.

Connie, as an experienced hiker these are probably an easy days walking for you ;)

Now Sandra, see I think your world is exotic because it is different to mine but then that's one of the things I like about blogging ~ the cosmopolitian community.

Ash: you get some lovely sites yourself in your corner of the world.

A. said...

Incredible.

So, why on earth did you come back?!

kimba said...

Thank the Lord I have a sensible sister. That hat was a monstrosity I wouldn't be caught dead in. As for going camping I have already mentioned I only camp in hotels (5 star ones of course).

MamaOlive said...

Very beautiful. And yet I know that in real life it's so much more than in the pictures. If only it wasn't so far away... That's one thing I really liked about C.S.Lewis' The Last Battle - that heaven is just like a bigger, brighter Earth, and you don't get tired, so you can go do and explore all those things you missed out on in life.

Anonymous said...

Ganeida,
These photos are amazing, but what's more amazing is that I've been to Queensland, and I didn't see any of the beauty that you have pictured here. :( I had so much trouble with sandflies (sigh).

Praise God that your tent didn't fall down in the middle of the night!

Ganeida said...

Kimba: I knew you'd bite & I wanted to post that hat for moly; she has a more frivolous mind than you do...& I didn't ask you to camp. I asked you to abseil. Come on. Be a sport!

MamaO: The reality is absolutely stunning. Pictures just can't capture it.

Homeschoolmum4Christ: If you had sandies bothering you you were near mangroves. Up at Springbrook the glow worms eat mozzies etc so you rarely see one. Besides it's a lot cooler in the mountains, even in summer.