Saturday, September 24, 2016

A Trip to Tumbulgum

Lucky us just had a holiday in Coolangatta, which is in Australia.  Eight days, in a very nice apartment style holiday - not quite a hotel - but almost.  We stayed at Kirra Beach in the Nirvana, which is about 15 storeys high.


Nirvana, from the Seventh Floor

I can certainly recommend this as a place to stay: across the road from the beach, a high standard of rooms.  Just enough bars and restaurants downstairs. If you need more shopping, 5 minutes away, around the headland is Coolangatta shopping area.

We got on a river cruise, which I was not carrying high hopes for.
As it happened, it was great, if a little over cast. A very peaceful quiet trip up the Tweed river to a small locality called Tumbulgum.  Hard name to get right.  


Top deck of the boat that took us up the Tweed river

We had morning tea on the boat. What really was a highlight was the the feeding of pelicans.

They came sweeping in a big flock of about twenty, along with seagulls, Ospreys and a Kestrel or two.  Amazing to see.

At the town had a beer/coke at the pub after a stroll around.  What a nice peaceful place, warm too. On the way back they served lunch, a leisurely one!


What most of the journey looked like


All sorts of strange birds and flowers at Tumbulgum, and a weird mountain in the distance called Mt Warning.


View from the pub at Tumbulgum


Because we felt we should get the use out of the rental car, after we got back, we had a rest then set out for Mt Warning.  It was nearly dark by the time we got to the turn off, and we drove about 6 kms up the mountain on a very narrow road with creepy trees either side hanging over most of the road.  Unusual birds trying to get themselves run over, with not another car seen.  

Pleased to get out of there, after seeing too many episodes of sensing murder!

Drove home in the rain, what the heck.

At one stage we got to Byron Bay, a nice place, but unfortunately everyone else thinks so too, and they are all there! No place to park.

Looking at the map, we realised there was a day long road trip inland for a bit.  On a beautiful day we set out up the Currumbin Valley, where there was a rock pool for me to swim in... maybe.

As it happens it did not look particularly inviting, so I skipped a dip, here it is:


Currumbin Valley Rock Pool

I hope this next pic gives an idea of how wonderful the scenery is in this valley:


Currumbin Valley Scenery

Further on, we went past Mt Warning (overtaken by about 50 motorbikes), alongside sugar cane fields with mountain ranges in the distance. 


Mt Warning and Sugar Cane

On the way back to "civilisation" we stopped at the roadside and saw someones front gate, which I thought looked rather nice.


Someones front gate in the boondocks

One of our final acts was to go to Brisbane to have a quick look.  As usual with lack of planning, we did not know where to go so drove down the main street, and said yep, seen Brisbane.  Which is not really fair to Brisbane, as no doubt it has nice places to go.



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