Kondalilla National Park
Sorry it's been a few days since I updated my blog, but I've been super busy! I've been having such a magical time though! At orientation last week I signed up for Friday's "Golden Key Bus Trip" without knowing exactly what it was. Man, was I in for a surprise! For some reason none of my other friends signed up for it, so I was going to go alone. But luckily, Megan (my third roomie who got here on Thursday) said she wanted to go on it too even though she wasn't signed up for it. Fortunately, that didn't matter and the woman let her go anyway.
We got to Kondalilla National Park around 9:30. When we got off the bus we were told that we had until 12:45 to go explore on our own. Megan and I started talking to two girls who go to the University of Wyoming, Andrea and Erin. The 4 of us hiked together to the falls. The hike was slippery at some parts, and of course I fell, but only once which was pretty impressive for me. The hike was absolutely beautiful! It was in a rainforest (ahhh so cool!!!), and there were so many incredible trees.
HUGE!!!
When we got to the falls they were like no other waterfall I have ever seen (only ones from pictures). The waterfall was SO tall. I took a ton of pictures on both of my cameras but none of them turned out very well because the lighting was weird. The picture below is a picture I found on Google, but I'll post a few of my own too.
Kondalilla Falls
(Stole this from here: http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/kondalila/images/knp-kondalilla-falls-c.jpg)
Erin, Megan and I decided to climb up a bit!
Then we decided to get in the tree!
Once we left the falls, we continued walking in a different direction (the hike was a loop). Once we got towards the end of the hike, there was another smaller waterfall and a beautiful view that reminded me a little bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
We got back to the parking lot about 45 minutes early so we just relaxed in the sunshine. I was a little bummed that we hadn't seen any wildlife (we had been told there was a good chance of seeing snakes, goannas, koalas, bush turkeys, and many kinds of birds... we hiked pretty fast though because we were worried about missing the bus since we didn't know how long the hike was, so there probably had been wildlife and we had unfortunately just missed it). However, while we were sitting there all of a sudden we had a few visitors...
There were a few bush turkeys there, and now I'm seeing them everywhere I go!
I believe this is a goanna (Uncle Peter or Dr. K- do you know?)- he was huge!
Maleny
Then we got on the bus to go to the Hinterland town of Maleny. Maleny is a cute little town that seems to be Australia's version of Boone. First we got lunch (I brought a PB&J in order to save money, but I did get a yummy mini gelato). Then we walked down the street and went into a produce store. Everything was so much cheaper than at the grocery store! We were so excited and all bought fruits and/or vegetables. I got some scrumptious apples and strawberries and a little thing of white chocolate dip to go along with them- SO tasty!!!
This is totally my future car :)
Tastiest fruit ever! And almost all of it was grown here!
Mary Cairncross Park
About an hour later we headed to Mary Cairncross Park. The main reason for going here was for the incredible view of the Glass House Mountains. These "mountains" are really the cores of extinct volcanoes. The view was beautiful and the extinct volcanoes were so cool!
Me, Erin, Megan and Andrea.
Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore all of Mary Cairncross Park (I think I might go back at some point), but we went on part of the trail and saw some more amazing wildlife.
I think these are fig trees, but I'm not positive. Whatever they are, they're AWESOME!
THESE ARE SO ADORABLE! They are called Red Legged Pademelons, which are rainforest wallabies. My SLR doesn't work well in low-lighting so I couldn't get a great picture, but oh well!
This bush turkey got on the table when there was still food on it and the woman who worked at the restaurant had to chase it away, which didn't really work because the turkeys here are so used to people that they're not scared of them.
I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had to get on the bus to go back to USC. On the walk back the sun was shining and what is essentially our backyard looked gorgeous so I took a picture...
Seriously still can't believe this BEAUTIFUL land is my home for 5 months. I miss all of my friends and family so so so much, but I want to stay here forever!!!
More posts about my weekend are soon to come, so check back soon! :)
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