Springbrook national park

So at 4am we hiked (at speed!) up Mt. Warning. It’s wonderful having a strong, fit, fast, tireless woman to look after me :) Mhairi carried the down jackets + water and some food and I carried… me. Mind you, I’d probably have been left far behind otherwise.

Unfortunately it was the first time in aaaages that there was a cloudy morning. Great views from the top. There was an amazing contrast at the summit. We found, hiddled in sleeping bags, two girls from the West Coast who had bivvied up there overnight. There were also 4 people from Surfers Paradise who’d hiked up that morning also (you can see Surfers in the background of this pic)

One of the girls from Surfers lit up a cigarette and called her mother on her mobile to say she was at the top. It was a wonderful contrast.

So at 7am, back down at the car, we drove to Springbrook national park. Beautiful. I’ve forgotten which park it was in previous to this – but Mhairi went off for a run, and I walked along afterwards, and on my way back from whichever falls we were at… say this guy accross the path

So I did what any tough guy would do. And waited. Trembling. Until it had slowly passed across the path. At which point I ran up the path as fast as I could. Turned around, walked back as close as I dared, and took the picture.

Upon getting back to the Information place I told them of my NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, and was informed that it was harmless. Dang. (ok, actually I just asked if it was deadly). Either way, it made for a more exciting walk than usual.

We also passed natural arch park.. it would have been great to get back to it at night to see the glow-worms + bats, but there was just too much else to do too…

Then it was onto another far more impressive set of falls (sorry, I forget the name of them). I was a wee bit tired by this stage, and felt a little book reading + pcard writing was in order. Mhairi went for her usual 12km run of the day, and ran down to the bottom – off to some pools, and back up again. Taking this pic en route (in fact most of these pics have been hers)