Saturday in Bunya National Park

New Australian Outfit

After an OKish sleep (we were awake for a 2 hour period in the middle of the night) we got up and opened the curtains.  Matt wasn’t too happy when he looked out of the window.  I asked him why and he told me to look.  It wasn’t the weather as it was deep blue sky.  I thought for a moment someone had stolen a car, but no, there was a very still wallaby under the front of Vanessa’s car.  Its eyes were open, it didn’t look well.  Martin and Matt went to investigate it – it was dead.  What to do?  We have a animal lover with us (Mia who is 9) who would be very upset, so Martin dragged it away to a bush and left it there.   Not a great start.

Viewpoint

Anyway we got together, didn’t mention it and had breakfast – pancakes – always seem very decadent to me as a breakfast item.  We then left Vanessa at the house and headed down to do the Scenic Circuit walk – a 4km walk around the forest, taking in two waterfalls.  These are called the Bunya Mountains because of the Bunya Pines in it.  However, without Vanessa we didn’t have an Australian with us, so we walked around, amazed by the flora again – huge buttress trunks, creeper vines, strangler figs etc, and these amazing huge thick tree trunks that looked like elephant legs, so much so that we christened them so.  Some of them even had roots peeking out from the bottom that looked like elephant toe nails.  We were getting a little frustrated that this tree wasn’t marked out like all the others with a name plate, and it wasn’t until almost the end of the walk that we saw a sign for them – they were…yes you’ve guessed it – the Bunya Pine!!!  We certainly will be able to spot those again.

Bunya Pine (middle bit)

Bunya Pine  (top of)

Bunya Pine (bottom of) - looks like an Elephant's foot

The gang

I have to mention at this point just how wonderful Ben has been with Tom since we got here.  Ben is 12 later this month so there is a significant age gap between them but he has been an absolute gem, looking after him, keeping him entertained, playing rugby with him and today walking with him around the rainforest keeping him amused.  At one point they were raspberrying their way round.  Ben seems to have a natural empathy with Tom and Tom thinks the world of Ben  – copying everything he does – even down to eating the same sandwich etc.

Me in a tree

We got back to the house at lunchtime.  Kathryn, Vanessa’s sister had arrived from the Sunshine Coast, and Ian and Kerry, Vanessa’s parents had also arrived from Chinchilla, so it was a full house and a chatty house – everyone was very friendly.
  

First job was lunch – my favourite type of lunch – a grazing one with all my favourite things: home made corned beef, cheese, salad, choko chutney (homemade by Vanessa from choko, a weird looking green vegetable – looks unappetizing, but is delicious (as chutney anyway).  We then had a lazy afternoon – Tom had a nap so he could stay up late and we sat on the veranda enjoying the sun, watching the wallabies.  Ian and Kerry headed home as they were up just for the afternoon.  We were expecting to see lots of rosellas again but they didn’t turn up, just lots of magpies which we didn’t want.

Brush Turkey

Relaxing

At 4pm, we got Tom up and headed down to the bird feeding station to search out the good looking birds.  We bought some bird seed so we could feed them, but about 5 minutes after we got there, they all disappeared.  It did say at the feeding area that the feeding time was 3.15 to 4.30, but we didn’t expect them to all suddenly leave, but they did.  It was if someone had told them the time and told them to leave.  Luckily the lady in the shop gave us a bird to put the seed in so we could take it away.  We then did a short 0.5km walk in the forest and headed home.  Kathryn made a great spaghetti bolognaise then another game of hide and seek before Tom went shattered to bed.

Starry night