Friday 5—Friday 19 June
We woke in Stanthorpe to a beautiful sunny day for travelling. The trip to Canungra Showground was through many different views including farming crops, cattle, sheep, horses, forests, mountains, lakes, winding roads and more—oh I forgot to say road works everywhere with portable traffic lights, this slowed us down by at least 30 minutes in the trip. We arrived safely and set up in a large open area with no neighbours close-by even though there were many campers at the showground.
On Saturday we spent the morning catching up with general upkeep. In the afternoon we had a visit from John (Dean’s youngest brother) & Hazel (J&H) and after lots of catching up we headed to the Canungra Hotel for dinner; quite delicious.
Sunday found us up getting ready to head to Genesis Church at Carrara where we caught up with J&H again for the service and then visited them at home for lunch, more chatting and dinner before heading back to our CARDIS (35 minutes away).
It’s Monday and we had a few jobs to do like find a Pathology Clinic for Reen’s tests, a Chemist for meds and a refill for our gas bottle. This ended up taking all the morning and our exploring didn’t start until around 1230 hrs.
We headed up Mt Tamborine with our first stop being the Eagle Heights Bakery for lunch which we took with us and ate as we enjoyed the views from the Hang Glider Launch and Lookout site. After lunch we drove to the historic St Bernards Hotel and walked through and out the back for the views of the valley. From there we drove to Curtis Falls where we embarked on a bush walk down to the falls, it was great—although fairly steep—and then slowly back up to Ivy (truck) and home.
On Tuesday we enjoyed a slow start to the day and headed to the Historic Rivermill at Mt Nathan for coffee on our way back to J&H for more catching up and then off to the Shearers Arms Tavern for dinner and an evening of Music Bingo; great fun. During the day we had 12mm rain which made many puddles all around the camping area.
We woke to rain on Wednesday and we had plans to visit Maud (Reen’s youngest sister) & Ian (M&I) for a catch up time and then dinner. We had a great time together with lots of interesting memories. Thursday was planned as a slow down house-keeping day, which was good because it was still raining. We have enjoyed our busy week out and about and here in the quiet showground with lots of trees around and birds singing.
Friday was looking to be a busy day with an early wake up call as we needed to get ready to head to Tugun, near the airport and John Flynn Private Hospital for Reen’s doctor’s appointment (about 1 hour drive). We then headed back to the CARDIS because Maud was dropping in to visit and for lunch.
On Saturday we visited M&I; Kiely (Maud’s daughter), Pablo & Emilio were there for lunch also. We hadn’t seen Kiely in many years and had never met Pablo & Emilio and it was great to catch up.
Sunday was shaping up to be another busy day with family; we first headed to Genesis Church with J&H and then back to the CARDIS to meet up with M&I for a picnic lunch at Cedar Creek Falls picnic area on Mt Tamborine. We walked along the track down to the falls; we didn’t go the whole way down but close enough to see how the large falls fed the 4 lower falls. It was all quite beautiful.
The sun was shining as we woke on Monday and we ventured out to the Lahey Tramway Tunnel just out of town. It was a short walk from the parking area to the signboard with all the history info (including graffiti😪) only to find that it had been closed. Then it was time to stop at the Outpost Cafe for lunch; quite delicious.
Tuesday shaped up as being another busy afternoon with family. To change the trip to Ormeau a little we drove up the goat track (Tamborine Mt Rd), it’s a very winding road with great views and a few one lane sections. We were heading to lunch at Yatala Pies on the recommendation of M&I; they were close to the best pies yet. We headed to J&H’s for the afternoon and then off to dinner at the Shearers Arms Tavern and another night of music bingo where M&I joined us for a great night.
For a change of routine we actually managed to get some odds and ends of packing up started on Wednesday which also included fuelling up in preparation for Friday travelling.
We had already planned a busy Thursday spending time with J&H and M (I was working). We all piled into J&H’s car and we headed up to the Lamington Plateau in the Lamington National Park (part of the McPherson Range) to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. While there we fed the king parrots & rosellas, saw the replica Stintson airliner and read about its history, did the Treetop Walk along the boardwalk through the forest and had lunch at O’Reilly’s Mountain Cafe. As we drove back to the showground we stopped at the Kamarun Lookout (beautiful scenery) and also found the Big Lamington (quite old and run down).
During our 2 week stay in Canungra Showground we have enjoyed the peaceful setting in the valley with lots of sunny days as well as having around 30mm rain. As we commence our pack up routine we reflect on all the amazing adventures we have had.
