2010/11 Australia trip - Crows Nest |
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The roads around Tin Can Bay and across to Gympie were lined with yellow spring flowers, so there 
were lots of stops for pictures.
Gympie, like many towns in the area has streets lined with jacaranda trees, another mass of colour, a violet-tinged blue. The trees come from South America but they thrive in 
Queensland, and give a beautiful display in October. We noticed that they disappeared as we climbed into the mountains, so they must be sensitive to cold weather.
We were on a half-day drive south via the Big Pineapple. Sandie wanted a repeat order of the dessert she’d eaten there after our train trip around the plantation back in ‘95. Our first snag was that we were on the M1 motorway; I didn’t remember that from last time. I thought that the plantation was near Nambour and on the old main road and sure enough that’s where we found it. The big pineapple itself was still there, towering over the entrance, but everything else was in disarray, and walled off by a security fence. Our guess was that it was a victim of the motorway, bypassed into oblivion, but apparently it had been in financial trouble for a while. Ironically, it had only just been sold and closed down a few days before we arrived.
Disappointed, we ploughed on, heading inland into the mountains now to avoid Noosa, and the Gold Coast and Brisbane, all of little interest to us. This gave Sandie some interesting driving on narrow back roads but we arrived at Crows Nest in time to set up in daylight. Our first reaction was that this was a good choice, with plentiful birds and wildflowers. This tree, covered by flowering vines, was just outside the park.
It was also going to be cold. As well as being further south we were up in the mountains at about 2000ft and the temperature dived at sunset.
Friday October 29th
It was a cold night and a cool morning. I took an early walk along Crows Nest Creek looking for 
platypus, but the pools were too turbulent after the rain. It was hard to spot anything in the water, but I saw a wallaby and birds and butterflies, including this one [Glasswing butterfly] with the ultimate camouflage, transparency.
While I was standing in waist high grass waiting for a platypus, I heard a rustle in the grass behind me, and then something slid along my right calf and over my left foot. I froze, as what else could I do, until a red head appeared out of the grass and the brush turkey ambled out, unaware that it had just frightened a human.
Sandie came with me on the next walk, but we didn’t see much more except for a black snake crossing our path. The park itself is really pretty with granite boulders and with the recent rain there were little falls and cascades everywhere. The main falls are pretty too but hard to see, obscured from 
above by trees. Earlier, I’d climbed down to the pool below the falls, but I can report that the view from there is also obscured. I wasn’t willing to swim for a photo.