VanDijkTrack

Not long after the start of the new school season, Jorick already was lucky having an excursion with his school class. They went to Trevena Glen Farm and some parents joined. Jorick insisted that his Dad also should join, so he did, which was fun. The kids could feed calfs, pigs, goats, hold chickens, ride a pony, sit on a bull and milk a cow. It was a real educational interaction with animals and they loved it.

The next weekend we went bush camping and walking in Lamington National Park being one of the beautiful rainforest parks close to Brisbane (around 110 km, 2hrs drive). We selected the Green Mountain region, close to the well known O’Reilly’s region with O’Reilly’s resort to put up our tent.  A more than 30 km one-lane road with small and steep parts is leading to this destination. It was a beautiful road in a natural environment. After reaching our destination we could set up our tent, look around and have a barbeque in the evening.

During the night it became fairly cold on the mountain around 10 degrees Celsius. Other people camping here were walking in ski clothing, which was a bit weird. As usual the darkness already started early with complete darkness after 6 pm. That’s something we cannot get used to after being used to the long summer evenings of an (North-)European summer. So we went early to bed and awoke with the sounds of many birds, brush turkeys and also saw some very small wallabies (Red Necked Pademelons).  We started the day with the Botanical Gardens and the Tree Top Walk, which is an elevated path/bridge high through the trees. This gives unusual nice views of the forest.

After that we walked the Morans Falls Track of 4.6 km, 800 m down hill. It leads to the Morans Falls. First we could watch the Falls from the other side of the valley. Then we went to the top of it.

It was a nice walk in a beautiful area.

Especially around O’Reilly’s it was busy with much tourism since this is a popular destination.  The walking track was much better, although not as quiet as many other tracks in other areas.

At home we still enjoy the bush environment and all flowers in the more cultivated garden. For us it is unusual to have flowers around the house during the whole year. Also the trees always have leafs and also are loosing them continually. This makes us less aware of changing seasons.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind regards,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick

Already soon after the holiday we visited a monster truck show. It was a fund raiser (one of many) from several schools together. One of the trucks already had visited the school of Nicole and Jorick. After that the kids were really exited to go and we bought some tickets. The whole show contained monster trucks crashing a row of cars (we kept ours at the car park), a jump show by a local motor club and a stuntman driving through fire. It was fun to see it, once.

On the 25th of April it was Joricks 5th birthday. He already got us out of bed very early so the presents were unpacked soon after sunrise. He also got several presents from overseas. Thanks for that ! Your are still on their mind ! Often they think and talk about you friends and family in the Netherlands and are looking forward to meet you again (like their parents do).

A week later Jorick had his birthday party with some friends from school and his former pre-schools. Already half a year he was telling us that he wanted a treasure hunt on a pirate party, so that’s what we did. In our garden we made a treasure hunt with several games and finally they found … YESS! It was a challenging walk making them tired, not quiet 🙂  We also had some games in the shed as you can see on the picture.  (as always, for privacy reasons not many pictures are shown with others and some cannot be enlarged)

The next day Jorick had a lot of presents to play with and we took a day to relax in/around our house. The trampoline is sometimes a good way to spend some energy. Also the frog pond is still fascinating. Especially Nicole can spend hours watching and catching.

And a shower coming over is not any problem. You just sit together under the umbrella to keep watching all garden activity.

The next day we went to Tamborine National Park, around 80 km south of Brisbane in the Gold Coast Hinterland. It’s a rainforest close to Lamington Park (where we will go camping next week). There are many walking tracks to choose from. We did the Witches Chase Track and the Witches Falls circuit. The big Red Cedar trees can become 60 meters high and many hundreds of years old. Often they are surrounded by Strangler Figs are very impressive.

On the mountain there’s the village Tamborine Mountain with a lot of (touristic) activity. Shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. Here also you can find many places to picnic with barbecues.  In effect we met several people walking in the Park as well. After our quiet experiences further north two weeks ago it was a bit different. Nevertheless the nature is beautiful.

Below you’ll find a commercial touristic movie about Tamborine Mountain and a movie of the local road, both giving an impression of the area. 

Cheers,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick.