A sunset walk on Mt Gravatt

We often go walking at sunset on Mt Gravatt, and always feel lucky to live here.

Sunset in Winter

Bush poetry of Dennis N. O'Brien

The amber glow as day begins to die

Behind a darkened hill that lies to west,

Where trees that silhouette against the sky

March on like lines of soldiers on its crest.

And where the amber meets the fading blue

And tinges it with golden streaming light,

With painted colours these last rays imbue

The western sky, before the fall of night.

A Skink and waterfalls at Springbrook

The weather here in Queensland at Easter was absolutely glorious, we had a wonderful camping trip.  We were staying near the Channon, a lovely place, but were really keen to visit Springbrook National Park - although not particularly near where we were staying (in fact, closer to home, oops!!).  Anyhow, it was a really stunning drive across the hills, passing by no less than 3 national parks: Mt Jerusalem, Mt Warning (Wollumbin) and Lamington (Binna Burra section), as well as quaint villages like Uki, and the infamous Nimbin.

Perhaps it was the drop of rain we had during the night that meant the waterfalls were in full flow!  We decided to do the Twin Falls circuit walk, which loops above, below and behind several beautiful falls.  This is the Twin Falls waterfall, below, that we walked behind (second image)!  How I wish I had been wearing my swimmers for a dip in the beautiful pool below the falls.

A couple of other lovely waterfalls we could only see the top of, but I got some nice pictures nonetheless.  The first is a picture of the view out across the treetops taken from a little bridge crossing the top of Blackfellow falls (my favourite viewpoint of the day), the second is taken at the top of Goomoolahrah falls (meaning Big Waterfall in the language of the Yugambeh people of this region) - a short drive away.

The reason I know the Yugambeh aboriginal word is that we also came across a noticeboard, explaining all the aboriginal place names around Springbrook, very interesting!

We also encountered some wildlife, despite the tracks being rather busy.  We were lucky enough to see a Land Mullet, Egernia major, which is a very large Skink - in fact the largest Skink species in the world!  Apparently they can be quite shy despite their size, so Im very pleased to have manged to get a quick snap of one before he disappeared into the bush.