I got a good night’s sleep, so was up early, it was cold in the cabin because they are not well insulated, probably not necessary given the usual climate. I left the hut at 08:00 and headed towards Killarney where the Queen Mary falls are. By pure chance I decided to take a Google suggested alternative, but slightly slower route rather than the national highway. After leaving Stanthorpe it turned into a gravel road, I had a AWD so I followed it, through some beautiful country. There were lots of photo opportunities, but I didn’t taken them all because most of the time it was raining. The whole drive took about an hour, occasionally I would come across tarmac where there was a village.
The last village I came to was called Legume and I stopped in the village shop for petrol, and a bag of crisps. As I was trying to figure out the petrol pump a lady came out and offered to fill it for me. We got chatting and it turns out her husband was from Bexley and had been a £10 pom. He said that he was last back there in 1975. The shop was full of the usual stuff crisps etc, but also has a lot of beer wines and spirits for sale. They gave me a tourist map of Warwick I thanked them and and carried on.
My first real stop of the day was Queen Mary falls the most spectacular of a series on Spring Creek. I parked up and headed to to the lookout which was a short walk. The falls were impressive, and I noticed that at the bottom there was a walkway so I headed round the longer path, taking in more of the rain forest and the base of the falls. When I got back to the car I popped over the road for coffee and cake, which came with a squirt of cream, it would have been rude to not eat it. Outside there were parrots feeding on bird seed, as well as some tiny pretty looking birds with red Tails, they turned out to be Firetail Finches.
My next destination was Mount Bald where some interesting balancing rocks have formed. The route took me back on the gravel tracks I had followed early in the day. It was an hour’s drive and a bit tricky to find as I was using offline Google maps. I parked up and found out at the visitors centre that the walk to Pyramid summit was about 2 hours return, I had enough time.
On the way I detoured to see the balanced rock forming an arch over the path, and then headed up the path to the summit. It was threatening rain, but I was feeling lucky. Eventually the path climbed steeply for many steps and then the steps ran out and a rock hill took over. There were white marks painted on the rock to showtgw way. I started to climb but although I might have got up I realised the rock was too slippery tockne down. Reluctantly I turned around, especially as it could have got wetter if the rain started again. On the way down I saw a group of Kangaroos grazing in a clearing, when a black animal which from a distance looked and acted like a pig walked across the area where the roos were grazing.
The drive to Tenterfield, where I had a motel room booked, was about an hour and pretty straight forward. The motel was basic but clean, breakfast was crazy so I thought I would leave it and get something on my way in the morning. I went for a walk down the High Street to see what there was, it seemed to be a one horse town. All the buildings were in an art deco style.
Sir Henry Parkes was the local here there was a school or arts and musuem dedicated to him. According to Wikipedia he was the father of the Australian federation. “Sir Henry Parkes, GCMG (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was a colonial Australian politician and longest non-consecutive Premier of the Colony of New South Wales, the present-day state of New South Wales in the Commonwealth of Australia. He has been referred to as the “Father of Federation” due to his early promotion for the federation of the six colonies of Australia, as an early critic of British convict transportation and as a proponent for the expansion of the Australian continental rail network.”
I decided that the Commercial Hotel was the best place for details nner so I had a shower headed out at about 18:30. Lemon pepper squid was my choice which came with chips and salad, and was tasty. I spent some time researching my next move then went back to process my pictures and do a sun dance in the hope of better weather.