Up the Mountain.........Down the Mountain!

29/08/202
 What an action packed day, we are knackered.
There is a weekly farmers market  here every Wednesday, the calf and pig market starting at 7am, so we were up at the crack of 8 to go and have a  nosey.  Besides calves and pigs for sale there is also fruit and veg, chooks, guinea pigs, budgies, lorikeets, and general bric a brac. Farmyard junk is also available so if you want an old oil drum or some rusty wire…..it’s here. The nearest think to a third world market we have seen here. If the bunny huggers ever get to know……well!!
  Less than an hours drive from Warwick going east is the Great Dividing Range which we may have mentioned occasionally. Anyway after the market we travelled up the range to see the Queen Mary Falls, the main waterfall of several around this area. . Before that we stopped to go bush bashing along the side of a creek to look at the Brown Falls. We thought our mountain goat days were over but we struggled there and back having to scramble across the creek a couple of times. The fall is quite spectacular and well worth the effort. Up the hill a little further were more lookouts where we just needed to point the camera.
  At Queen Mary Falls there was more walking to be done, firstly a one K track to the top of the falls which we did and took more photos, then there was a 4K walk down to the bottom of the falls and back, we didn’t do it because fortunately we were running out of time! We had to get back to Warwick as we had left our good knife to be sharpened by “Mr Sharp” who had his van was parked outside Bunnings.
  We took the old settlers route back which took us through the small farming communities of Killarney, Loch Lomand, Emu Vale and Yangan, all really nice little townships. After collecting the knife we decided it would be prudent to go and by a box of plasters. We found ordinary walking a little difficult, as we were so stiff. We really must get a bit fitter!!

 30/08/2012
  Over the range again as we leave Warwick and follow the Cunningham Highway. Warwick was a good place to base ourselves for a short while but it fell short on not having a Dan Murphys, we had to pay top dollar for essential supplies.
  The Cunningham Highway is named after another intrepid pioneer who yonks ago found a way through the range and is now a major link road east/west. We parked at the very top where there are walking trails of varying lengths and difficulty. After yesterdays hike we chose an easy one through the rainforest to a lookout where we could see towards the Gold Coast. We couldn’t actually see the coast but could see a bloody long way!
 We are mooching at the moment, killing time before we go up to Brisbane and Marions house for a short  while.  As a result of meandering we keep finding ourselves in towns we have been to before except we approach them from a different direction. We had lunch in Boonah where we stayed about a week ago, then drove on into Beau desert , another town we have visited recently, before heading south towards Laminton National Park. It’s a few K’s down the road from where we have parked up for the night at Canungra. We are on a large showground and will visit Lamington tomorrow.

 31/ 08/202
 Our mooching is taking us to places well off the beaten track, so much so that many of the roads don’t appear on my ‘Tour of Australia’ map. This is a map I have been using to plot our route around Oz.
Canungra is a nice small town which appears to be the last shopping stop before setting off up the hills into Lamington National Park, a place for serious hikers. Some of the trails are one, two and three day treks and everything has to be carried in and out. We chose to drive to the end of the road and take a short mountain side walk of 2.5K round trip. We thought that was hard work but well worth it. This whole area is part of the G D Range and a more spectacular and diverse area is hard to imagine. Rainforest, arable land, cattle country, horse studs, vineyards and fruit farms. It’s got the lot. We bought 5 Kg of grapefruit for $5 at a roadside stall, in the shops they are $4 per kilo.
  As we were driving along one ridge we could see the high rise buildings of Southport and Surfers Paradise of the Gold coast in the distance. It may be a bit chilly up here in the hills but it has to be better than being in Australias Las Vegas which is the Gold Coast.
 After a circuitous route we are only 9K from last nights stop. We are on a plateau 550m above sea level called Tamborine Mountain, in North Tamborine. We will use it as a as a base for a couple of night before heading up to the big city.