Oct. 8 - 12 - Girraween National Park

Our Tent Village

After a day at home to recover from the road trip and do our laundry, it was off on a five-day field trip with the students to Girraween National Park.  Girraween is on the dry side of The Great Dividing Range (Australia's only mountain range) and it was also in the granite belt.  It reminded me a lot of Yosemite in the USA, except that it was also home to a zillion kangaroos and didn't have big cliffs.  Our camping setup was really interesting.  We were taken care of by Kangaroo Bus Lines, a company that specializes in camping excursions.  We slept in 2-person tents that we put up ourselves.  We had air mattresses that they supplied and slept in our own sleeping bags.

The Kitchen

 There was a bathroom in the campground with running water and electricity, but no power at our site.  The bus company set up tables and a big tarp for our eating area, and a trailer that they pulled behind the bus turned into the kitchen.  Jan our cook did a great job feeding us - it turns out that she and her husband own the company.  It's not a small thing - they have almost a hundred buses.  She really seemed to like to be with us and do the cooking, and told me that she now has trouble hiring cooks.  I volunteered on the spot!

We spent our time at Girraween hiking around to various sites where the students did projects.   Annie and I hiked a lot and had a great time!

The weather was hot and sunny during the day, and potentially quite cold at night.  The kangaroos were our buddies - always around in the mornings and evenings, and not at all timid about being close.

Who? Us?

I almost ran into one at night when I was headed to the bathroom.  We measured trees, caught yabbies (crayfish), counted 'roo poo, looked at stars, saw king parrots and kookaburras, climbed the pyramid, and generally had a great time.  I liked this park better than Lamington - maybe I need the sunshine.  Climbing the pyramid was a big adventure for me.  It is a fairly steep granite formation, and at one point on the way up I was sure I was going to just slide right down hundreds of feet to the bottom.  I sat down and just froze.

On the Pyramid

It is easy coming down

I considered calling out for help (I was alone) but decided that there wasn't anything anyone could do to rescue me.  So I instead started muttering unrepeatable things and slooowly started crab walking sideways about six inches at a time to get past the steep part.  My Outward Bound experience got me through it, and after reaching the top I didn't even notice the same section on the way down (maybe because I kept my eyes focused on the trail and never looked to the side again...)  Once it was over, it was a whole lot of fun!

Now we are back in Brisbane.  Laurie comes next Sunday, then on Monday we all head off for Heron Island and our last field trip in Australia.  Can't wait for another adventure!