Glasshouse Mountains
Cool Tree
Pademelon Wallaby
Another cool Tree
Michael left this morning to spend the day at Griffith University, while Marilyn and I drove south to visit some fun places. We drove along the “Steve Irwin Way” and past the Australia Zoo which was started by his Dad..
I giggled at the “Matilda” petrol (gas) station!!! By the way, petrol is about $1.45 per litre here, which works out to $5.22 per gallon.
Our first stop was at a beautiful rainforest area with a fantastic 2 km walking path thru it. We saw lots of cool trees, especially the gum trees with huge vines wrapped around them. The wildlife was amazing, and I had my first Wallaby sighting….this was a small one called a Pademelon Wallaby. The adults stand about 2-3 feet high and were not afraid of humans. It was fun seeing them hop across the path ahead of you or hear them scurrying thru the brush beside you. There was also an amazing number of birds, although we didn’t actually SEE many of them. However, the noise from them was deafening. One is called a Cat Bird and it’s cry sounding like a cross between and cat and a baby…..it was very disconcerting. The other interesting one was a Wampoo Dove whose call was deep and resonate like a frog call.
We then drove to a lookout for the Glasshouse Mountains and spent a while taking photos.
Our next stop was a wonderful little town called Maleny, on the banks of Obi Obi Creek. It was a typical Aussie country town, with a wide main street and small stores and businesses all along the street. The first different thing that I noticed was that the angled parking along the street was “Back-In” parking. You would drive up past the parking place and then back into it. It sure made it easy for getting into the traffic again.
We spent the next few hours eating and shopping. The first stop was a fantastic gelato shop, followed by lunch at a quaint little bakery. Notice that we did dessert first!!!! I had my first Toasted Cheese and Tomato Sandwich and was very happy with it. We checked out a bunch of the shops, including a couple of patchwork shops. Upon leaving Maleny, we visited several others in the area. I was surprised that there were so many in this country area. They were all just like the ones at home…..LOTS of fabric, some patterns and notions, and VERY friendly shop keepers!!!!
On the way home, we passed the “Big Pineapple” which was a tourist attraction that we visited when we were here in 1982. It was fun to be somewhere that I KNEW we had been to before!!!
Richard brought Michael home from the university and we enjoyed dinner with a portion of the Wray’s extended family. Their second son, David joined us, along with their first son’s wife, Bianca. We had a wonderful time laughing and enjoying their company.