Everybody Must Get Stoned

Springbrook NP in the rain and the raincoat performed admirably! We wandered around a circuit track at Purlingbrook falls were we walked behind the falls and got even soggier than we already were! The next day we continued down to Twin falls for anther wander in the rainforest where we saw twin falls and blackfellows falls and discovered some very pretty crayfish burrowing in the debris - they were blue and white and were not easily wrangled. From here we were bulk excited to go the "The Best of All Lookouts", the walk was nice taking in some very old antarctic beech trees, knarled and twisted with time and then onto the lookout. It was foggy again so needless to say we saw a magnificent view of nothing!

From Springbrook we travelled the narrow and winding road up to O'Rielley's plateau where we walked along the suspended tree top walk and even climbed up a couple of ladders to perch ourselves ontop of an emerging tree from the rainforest. We camped at Green Mountain camp ground where we found a rice bubble loving rosella who was taking them out of our hands. We intended to feed the king parrots and rosellas at the bird feeding exhibit but a bus load of Japanese tourists rocked up and we decided to leave them to it. We took a walk out to Python rock to take in the views but once again we were greeted with a view of mist and fog.

On to Canungra and a night by the river at Sharp Park where we shared our camp spot with three tawny frog mouths and watched thousands of bats migrating to the hills for an evening feed. Here we also saw some pale headed rosellas winging their way through the park.

We crossed the border again to NSW via Murwillumbah for supplies before heading to Mebbin NP for a night. We took a walk down to a creek where we saw the biggest strangler figs we have encountered thus far - they were enormous (will post some pics soon), we saw a rather angry looking unidentified snake on our walk which thankfully Bronson didn't try to wrangle. There was a small echidna at camp which we did manage to pick up, not too spiny and rather friendly. An early night was had due to an early rise to climb Mt Warning the next day.

Alarm went off at 5am and we stumbled out of the van to prepare for our walk up the mountain. It was raining but we drove down to the start of the walk regardless. As we sat weighing up our options the rain and fog increased making the decision to slug out 10kms for nil return of views quite easy. We pulled the pin and drove up to Border Ranges NP - Mt Warning would have to wait till a clearer day. With crappy weather the views were again fog filled but we camped at Sheepstation for the night in the hope that tomorrow would be clearer. We heard the most bizarre noise from camp that night - kind of a chook crossed with a pigeon trill. Bronson investigated and managed to locate a red-eyed tree frog. Apparently these frogs don't sound like a chook/pigeon but maybe he was trying to mix it up a bit! We also found an endangered Fleay's Barred Frog hopping along the road which was a good find indeed as they are very rare and have a very small distribution. The next morning was clear so we could take in the lookouts we missed the previous day, spectacular views of Mt Warning and the Tweed Valley (almost don't need to climb the mountain now!) and a few noisey finches alerted Bronson to the presence of a carpet snake settling in the branches of a tree. We started a walk through the rainforest but lost the track so ended up turning back before we got lost.

On to Nimbin to hang out with a few stoners. We were suprised that after spending a good half hour in the village that we were only offered to purchase drugs once! A couple of locals were overheard discussing the scarcity of magic mushies due to the flood and some rather wobbly, hairy looking hippies topped off the experience. We got the fudge out of there and headed for the hills again to Nightcap NP in the Whian Whian Conservation Area. We partook in a much needed wash and a few bacardis to cleanse ourselves of the Nimbin experience, whilst watching lightening from afar - didn't get the storm though.

We are now in Byron Bay about to consider a swim but it looks to be clouding up and the possibility of rain looks pretty high. Will head back towards Mt Warning for another try but think we had better check the weather first this time! Other than that we are both well, not sick of each other yet, Lulu is as happy as she could be given the number of hills she has been climbing lately and the children are asleep on the bed as normal.