On our way up the mountain we took a very brief tour of the campsite at Thunderbird Park, but the place didn't feel right. I'm not sure if it was the absent campground staff, or the rocky & uneven pitches, or the mozzies dive bombing the truck, or the seemingly abandoned caravans not entirely hidden by bleached tarp quilts, or the Bonny and Clyde looking couple respraying their car a completely different colour, but we decided to check out a place that my brother had mentioned, The Beacon on Tamborine. We were very glad that we did - what a contrast.
Jake took it easy while Ness and I turned this:
Into this:
That first night we also made the most delicious beef potjie - I think I should put it on my CV, it was that good!
I must give the caretaker Tim and his wife a mention, who not only run a beautiful and clean site, but are great to have a friendly chat with. It turns out that The Beacon was also the first stop on their round Australia trip 14 months ago, but they never made it past the gate again. When Tim mentioned that they were looking for staff, Ness and I nervously laughed as we glanced at each other to make sure that we were in agreement about not getting bogged so soon (we have already discussed working on the trip to supplement our travel fund).
We hadn't actually said goodbye to the Brissie family, just see you later. And later was only 2 days later as they joined us for the weekend (while we were still only a short drive away). Waz & Lenny who live on the Gold Coast also popped in with some delicious croissants. After a satisfying lunch Waz, Marius and myself decided to try out my newly acquired chainsaw and block splitter. From now on I will always try to do any block splitting when there are some mates around. Cutting the logs with the chainsaw took 1 person 5 minutes. Splitting them into fire size pieces took 3 of us... much longer. I was still splitting logs several days later with another new block splitter (we knackered the wooden handle on the first one pretty quickly). Eventually I gave up and sawed the blocks down the middle with the chainsaw, telling myself that the wood was too wet to split, and that I would use the splitter next time... Next time I run out of gas for the chainsaw maybe.
While we had only planned to stay there until the weekend, it was more of a "we'll use this plan until we make another plan" plan. I was finally starting to relax which meant the family was relaxing too, so we decided to stay a few extra days, see the sites, and not start the trip in a rush.
Since we have arrived in Australia we have found ourselves eating way too many unhealthy lunches, partly due to running around so much to sort things out, and partly because we have felt like we're on holiday and been lazy. To remedy this was easy and simply required us to carry a few basics in the fridge which we always have with us, then all we needed to do was pick up some fresh bread/rolls and find a beautiful picnic spot.
This is our first roadside picnic...
... next to a cemetery. It was very peaceful :)
Ness, ever vigilant against ants and spiders, took about 3 seconds to find an ant "so big it could have been a cat". And in a flash Jake tried to squash it (as I had taught him), much to Ness' horror. She has a more severe view of bites and stings than me, however in a country with at least a dozen things smaller than a pound coin that can kill you, I should probably be a bit more careful with what I teach Jake too.
We spotted a 1,5km walk starting from the picnic spot, so decided to take a post lunch stroll through the forest. With it being a short walk, Ness just grabbed a bottle of water, and we didn't bother with walking shoes or Jakes carrier. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as the walk was almost certainly longer than sign-posted, and soon became quite steep in places with boggy and slippery patches. And I found another leach between my toes. We now permanently keep our walking shoes in the car. The walk was well worth it though, with some very beautiful scenery.
Tamborine also has quite an arty community, who have created a Gallery Walk - a road full of colourful shops that sell everything from homemade fudge, to hand crafted fine jewelery, to German cuckoo clocks...
This lot sell handmade ornamental furniture for house and garden.
These guys sell... umm, actually I have no idea what this shop was selling, but I'm sure that it is good shit man.
Our last stop was for a spot of booze tasting at a local distillery with a very eccentric proprietor - we saw this place on an episode of Poms in Paradise (a series about Brits emigrating to Australia). Over time they have managed to distill a liqueur or spirit from just about every fruit in Australia.
They also make absinthe, and sell these absinthe fountains.
While driving around I noticed that some of my newly installed electrical equipment wasn't behaving as it should (the VSR wasn't linking the batteries while driving in the early evening). After calling a friend (thanks Dane) we figured out that the alternator had gone. It may have happened a few days earlier, but the solar array on my roofrack has been doing such a good job that I hadn't noticed before. This means that my car was actually solar powered for a while - cool! I sourced a quality higher output alternator as a replacement, and fitted it myself under the blue gums (or widow makers as one elderly observer commented) in the campsite.
A bit of a family landmark has been Jake starting to happily play on his own, freeing up mum and dad to read books or have a relaxing chat, or just listen to the birds. Pure bliss.
After almost a week we said goodbye to Tim and his family and headed south.
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