Part 1
Took the Lassie and the Rugrats up to the Springbrook National Park recently.
Bit of History. The Springbrook National Park is one of a series of National Parks nestled behind the Gold Coast, Australia.
These National Parks were formed from the remains of the largest extinct volcano in the southern hemisphere.
Massive thing, last blew it's top circa 20 million years ago.
Check out the scale of the monster, the solid plug of which is known as Mt Warning ...
That volcanic crater would have been more 20, maybe 30 kilometres across!
But that was then, this is now.
About a 40 - 50 min drive from the Gold Coast or about 90 mins from Brisbane, below is the first half decent look-out stop.
Squint hard, those vertical columns you see on the horizon line are the Highrises, condominium towers at the beach.
Viewing due east from the look-out.
The area was first opened up by the white settlers to harvest the giant teak trees which grew abundantly.
^ Not my image, but an original stump of a Cedar tree. Far left and upper most of the stump you can clearly see the notch carved into the tree which the logger cut to place his foot board.
Logging is now banned, but the Forest needs some of the monsters to topple (below) to allow light to penetrate the Forest Floor and allow the circle of life to continue.
It's surprising what you see in the light corridors ...
Being an area ripe with food sources, there were a number of Aboriginal Tribes who used to frequent the area, not that I
can pronounce it, but the main tribes name for this area is ...
One of the main attractions at Springbrook, for the day traveller is Purling Brook Falls.
It's described above and pictured below.
Easy stroll from the car park, though, for the adventurous, there is a track, maybe an hours walk return where you
can trek to the bottom of the falls, under the water curtain and back up.
Apologies for the media content, I have just the crappy Chinese made mobile phone.
Above ... the rugrats are curious about the native Fauna.
I told them it was a baby dinosaur ... they are going through that phase ATM.
Just a native skink ... one of the ones if it senses danger, it tosses it tail, which wriggles after disconnection and hopefully
distracts the predator enough for the skink to get a clean get away.
If you have a close look, you can see the clear line on the Skink's body where it's thrown it's tail before, and then grown back with a slightly different pattern/markings.
Part 2 soon, beer is empty and one of the Rugrats just woke up.
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