Up to the Bunyas

Our little house

This morning we packed up the car ready for our mini trip to the Bunya Mountains.  We had hoped to pay for the groceries as they won’t allow us to pay towards the accommodation, but sneaky Martin went to the supermarket before we got up so we couldn’t.  We haven’t been allowed to pay for anything since we got here, it is very generous, but very unnecessary we are more than able to pay our way and don’t want our trip over here to be a burden on them.

Wallabies

Crimson Rosella

Anyhow, I managed to convince Martin to take me to the supermarket again and bought some bits and pieces as treats and some bits to make mulled wine (except the wine – Australian law is such that you can’t buy alcohol from a supermarket you have to go to a bottle shop, and they don’t open until later in the day).

Matt with a Rosella

We got back and packed the car, a good job we had Vanessa’s parents big 7 seater as we had a lot to take – bedding for 7 people plus all the food, drink and bits and pieces you need when you rent a holiday place (you never know what you are going to need at these places).  We squeezed everything in and then headed towards Dalby the next town to Chinchilla.  Here we stopped for lunch (wonderful lamb kebab for me, sushi roll followed by  a dinosaur donut for Tom and a sandwich for Matt) and did a spot more shopping – got the wine for the mulled wine and a fabulous new sunhat for Tom (his current one has been getting a bit small for him) a proper explorer’s hat with a crocodile on it.  It will last him a while as it is huge.

Martin with a Rosella

We then headed into the Bunya Mountains a long winding road narrow road twisting up and up into the forested mountains.  It was a beautiful drive, the whole trip from Chinchilla was 2 hours (not including stops) but it really didn’t feel so.  We checked into the office and found our house for the weekend.  Now we were expecting a cabin like the ones we stayed in on the East coast but larger (as there are 8 of us) but we are staying in a lovely house on an estate of holiday houses – all individual and well spaced apart.  It has a huge living area and 3 bedrooms, a huge veranda outside, it even has a jacuzzi bath.  This wasn’t the pennies that they said the accommodation cost!  Oh and I almost forgot, we saw a Kookaburra on the way in and there were dozens if not hundreds of wallabies hopping around munching grass.

What do you call a man with a Rosella on his head?

We unpacked got settled in and then noticed a very brightly coloured crimson rosellas (blue and red) on the veranda, I took a photo, then another came, and another and another.  Wow!  The camera was on overdrive.  You only see these sorts of birds in a zoo at home.  We also spotted some parrots and galahs from the veranda but they didn’t come over.

Once we had got over the excitement we headed down to the National Park office to get some walking maps and then to the general store and shop for a look around (no patches – humpfh!).  There was a bird feeding station down there, and unfortunately one of the birds decided to land on Tom’s head so we had melt down for a little while (it does feel funny)!

Nice warm fire

We wandered back to our house, I made some chicken curry whilst we waited for Ben and Mia to arrive, which they did around 6.30.  So then it was curry and rice followed by a great game of hide and seek with Ben and Tom.  Tom is getting better at this in that he stays put when you start seeking him, but he giggles and doesn’t hide very well, for example his idea of hiding is to lie on the sofa, not even cover himself with anything, just lie there in full view.  Ben thought he would hammer the point home to him by doing the same thing to Tom, but Tom seemed unable to find him (we weren’t sure if he was pretending or if he really couldn’t see him).  It was funny – we were all in stiches.  All Ben had to say was ‘I wonder if Tom is going to giggle’ and you would hear him giggle and he would be found.

After an hour of this we decided it was Tom’s bed time, so off he went (under protest) – it was past 8pm!