Sunday in the Bunya Mountains

Wallabies grazing on the lawn

Woke up to thick fog this morning, so put our warm weather gear on.  Headed downstairs to find lots of Australian King Parrots on the veranda  so we got the seed out from yesterday and fed them.  Tom distributed seeds to us, rather than feed them himself, still a little nervous from Friday.  

So we had a great photo session, they really are beautiful: a lime green body with bright red heads.  They are bigger than the rosellas so kept them away.  During this time the mist burnt off and a deep blue sky appeared, fantastic, so we all got ready for a longer walk – this time the Barker’s Circuit – a 10km route which took in 2 more waterfalls and plenty more trees.

Mia feeding the parrots

Me and a parrot

Kookaburra

On the way to the walk we came across a Kookaburra - I got quite excited as I didn't manage to get a good picture of one of these in the wild last time, so I snapped away until it flew off.





I don’t get bored of these forest walks – there is so much to take in and see.  We were walking with Vanessa and Kathryn today, they marched ahead – I guess to them it is same old, same old: a strangling fig tree is normal for them, amazing and wondrous to us.

Martin and Tom in a tree

Ferns (again!)

Black Boy

We had our picnic at the second waterfall and then split into 2 groups.  Vanessa and Kathryn got so far ahead that we never saw them again and when we got back Kathryn had gone home.  We obviously we walking at Tom’s pace, unfortunately today we think we chose a route just a little too far as 2 kms from the end he started slowing down considerably and limping.  Matt put him on his shoulders for the uphill bits and Tom managed the downhill bits.  We finally made it to the end and treated Tom to a sit down and a cake at the café – he chose a Lamington a traditional Australian cake – sponge covered in chocolate and then rolled in coconut.

The boys about to dive into their treat

He was still limping after the sit down, so Matt put him on his shoulders again for the walk to the house.  We got back and Tom went straight to bed for a sleep whilst we collapsed on the sofas.  Martin managed to summon up the energy to play tennis with Ben – I don’t know where he got the energy from.  The Australian King Parrots came to visit again so Mia and Vanessa fed them with the remaining seed.

Australian Parrot (girl)

Australian Parrot (boy)

Australian woman (Vanessa) with Australian Parrots

Floppy Tom

At 4.30 Tom got up, but he was as floppy as could be so Matt took him for a Jacuzzi bath to see if it would perk him up and help loosen his leg muscles.

Wallabies