Come see the world with me!

Today, Sandra (who I’m staying with) drove Aki (cute Japanese) & me out of the Gold Coast into the mountains!

First stop was Hinze Dam. Though it was nice enough (beautiful views et all) I was not really too impressed.

From there it was off to the Rainforests! I was so excited! It’s the first time I would see a rainforest – and there’s just 0.3% of them left in the world.

Before we reached though, we had to go through Numinbah Valley - beautiful country side, lots of greenery, many glorious farms - one such one was “Coorumbong” - which means “water running over stones”. This lovely girl Rachel who was there (doing I presume some very McLeod’s Daughters-esq work) even let me sit on her motored-thingie!! All around were innumerable cows & horses, lovely!

We went all the way to rainforest at “Natural Bridge”. The rainforest here was really beautiful. The first thing that strikes you as you walk into them is that they’re sooo cool compared to the weather outside the forest.

This particular place also has a beautiful waterfall which has created an arch out of the rock forming a bridge looking like rock – natural bridge. We walked a beautiful path all along the rainforest in a way that we first saw the waterfall from above …

… until we finally ended up under the rocks beneath the fall!! I also met and spoke with a man who was measuring the height of the rock under the waterfall to find out if it was moving lower over the years. Fyi, it isn’t!

I was very impressed with the sheer height of most of the trees and the wonderful smell of the damp earth all around us. The entire place is very well taken care of (like most things around here!) there were good paths to walk on, making sure that the rainforests are not damaged by the tourist, there were signs all over making the experience an educational one as well. The last of pics below, for example, had what are called “Stag Horns” on them - if you look at the tree you’ll understand why!

By this time I was pretty tired – we did do a lot of walking – but Sandra was all gung-ho about seeing yet another rainforest, this one on another mountain (about 40 kilometers from the Gold Coast) called “Springbrooke”.

Natural Bridge was cool – Springbrooke was unbelievably COLD…. (almost 10 degrees) when compared to the sunny weather outside the rainforest **brrrrr**. Sandra had earlier warned Aki & me about the cold before hand & we had both taken jackets but it still was ridiculously cold.

The walk at Springbrooke was comparatively very short from the entrance to “The Best of all Lookouts” which because of the sheer height (we were on top of a mountain) coupled by the fact it was raining mildly – showed us nothing at all. We looked out from “The Best of all Lookouts” and all we saw was white – the clouds beneath us - you can even make out from the pics that we were walking in the clouds.

It was a little sad considering we had driven a long way – but the rainforest made up for it – this one was seemingly more natural than the previous one (no man-made side railings) and we also saw a Antartic Beechwhich still looks strong & happening - it’s stunning to take in the fact that these trees apparently date back something like 50 million years!! More on these trees here.

It’s very humbling to think that many of these trees we saw today have been around since the time dinosaurs walked the earth! I had actually looked up & imagined dinosaurs looming tall above the already tall trees or swooping through the tree branches. History indeed!

Before we went back home (it was really late in the day) - I needed to buy a European to Australian adapter for my camera & cell phone chargers. Found one at an electrical store X. Unfortunately it was such that I could only use it for my camera. Proceeded to another store nearby, Y.

They too had only the one adapter & I thought I might as well pick it – unlike the other store though (where I saw it cost $4.95), this one costs $9.95! I told that the salesman this & he came back & told me that I could have it for $7.70 – I still didn’t want to pay so much extra & since the other store was only little down the block I decided to go back there.

When I did go back there I found it did cost what I thought it did – but then the salesman, a cute young Ozzie guy called Eugene, said – “No this is not what you want” (I was looking at the price of something else) & he handed me another adapter (the right one) costing $10.95. So I told him that store Y told me $7.70 – and he said he’d go check & he finally told me he’d give to me at that price. He finally charged me only $6.95 for it! The girl who was the cashier told me in front of him

“He’s only doing this because you’re a pretty girl, I’ve never seen him doing this for anyone before”.

A good end to a good first day?

Almost, because we then had a most delightful almost picnic-esq meal sitting by the pool off the river.

It’s still not too late in the day & I’ve decided to now sit with my dear friend Suketu Mehta & read about the Maximum City I was in just a day ago.

** Though I didn’t take any photographs (due to lack of a charger) Aki got enough for the both of us, so I’ll add pictures to this post tomorrow.