Last Friday night Catherine and I headed up into the Springbrook mountains to a couple of lovely cabins in the bush.
The first one was a nice place with three split levels. The main bedroom being upstairs and to the left of the rest of the home. Inside was a newly renovated kitchen and downstairs is the lounge with a large fireplace and a renovated bathroom.
We unpacked the car and rested with a few drinks since it was too late at night to do much else. We headed to bed between 12am and 1am and slept well. The next morning we got up and had some breakfast.
While there we went on a trail walk for a few kilometres for some exercise. We also saw some of the local waterfalls.
Saturday night we went to see the Glow Worms. The guy hosting the viewing told us how he found the glow worms. He had been walking around his yard in the dark with a beer in his hand and fell down the embankment dug out of the back yard. He awoke four hours later and was unable to see out of one of his eyes. He looked up and saw all the glow worms shining brightly in the dark and began his study and research. Ten years later he was digging around near the worms and found the beer bottle he’d lost all that time ago. It’s now on display in his garage along with glowing fungus on tree branches, snail shells and various funnel web spiders, preserved. The snails eat the glowing fungus and spread the spores. The fungus makes the snails glow in the dark.
There were also glowing worms and foliage. We are going back in November/December as that’s when the fireflies are buzzing around, lit up. The female fireflies lie on the ground. When male fireflies are nearby the male ones light up and look for a response from below. Unfortunately due to there being about a 1000:1 ratio of male to females, the males blind each other with the flickering lights and nobody sees the females below. Eventually the guys give up and piss off, then one or two fly back later and see the females and score. The fireflies have no mouth and are born with all the energy they will have for their short lives. They spend their life burning themselves to a crisp.
We visited Panchos Mexican restaurant at the bottom of the mountains. I had a taquito with jalapenos and a steak with hot sauce and more jalapenos. Cath had some taquitos too and a couple of glasses of Sangria. Her main meal consisted of chilli con carne, a beef taco and a chicken enchilada. She asked for a side jug of hot sauce (not the hottest one there) but it wasn’t that hot after all.
Sunday morning we were woken at 6:30am with a KADONK! noise. Kadonk Kadonk Kadonk. I was trying to figure out what the damn noise was and Cath got up, telling me it’s a bird banging it’s head on the window. She shooed it off and hopped back in bed. We drifted off to sleep when suddenly KADONK! *Sigh* She got up and scared it off again and back to bed. Every half hour or so KADONK KADONK! I got up and saw to it a couple of times but eventually gave up and we went to get breakfast. Due to the noise, we named the little bird “Kadonk!”. Some time later it had gone quiet outside and I decided either the bower bird gave up or got knocked unconscious hehe. There was another bird nearby which made a really weird kaaawwwwoooaaaahhhhrrr noise. I decided the sound was the bird having an orgasm so from then on it became the “Orgasm bird”.
That morning I also discovered a large brown tick attached to my skull and freeloading off the juices inside (Don’t say it was starving!). I went to the top of the driveway to get a signal on my phone which I was not going to take, but luckily did. I phoned the Directory Assistance whom SMS’ed me the number for the Poison’s Information Centre. Unforunately, my phone could not ring the 131 number as it wasn’t available to mobiles. They said they cannot connect calls, only send SMS messages. Maybe I should have tried 1234 (or the cheaper 12456 Connect thingo) but didn’t think about that. I phoned the DA back again and they sent me the number for the Brisbane Women’s and Children’s Hospital which has a Poisons ward. That number had me on hold due to the large number of phone calls so I gave up and phoned dad and got him to ring the Information Centre’s 131 number instead. He phoned back and they said to grab it as close to the skull with tweezers and rip the whole thing out. They said Methylated Spirits can be used in other areas and the tick will just give up and fall off, but being on the skull you will get very sick very quickly and start vomiting so the best thing to do is to get it out fast. Cath got her tweezers and pulled it out. The whole lot came out completely. Also apparently Metho will irritate the tick as well and cause more problems.
Monday we went for another walk near the Twin Falls and Rainbow Falls. You actually walk behind the waterfalls and get sprayed with water. We stopped halfway around the track and had a rest on a seat under an overhanging rock. We were a bit amorous and got busted by a lady who looked in her 50s whom was out for a walk. It should give her something to talk about at the next CWA meeting, no doubt. hehe.
Monday night we sat outside at the second cabin in the bush and opened the back doors with the music blaring.. at about 11pm. Cath chopped up some fruit and stuff and we put them on the ledge nailed to the handrail of the back verandah. We huddled under doonas and waited and watched. Eventually a possum would come along to have a look around, after smelling the bounty. From time to time another one or two would become game enough to climb up as well and eat together. Occasionally one might hiss and snarl at another but there were no fights. One really oversized possum climbed up for a feed and I inched my way over to it and handfed it some apple. That was really cool!
The first cabin we went to had an outdoors showerhead attached to the side of the cabin. You open a big frosted glass door and shower in the open air. One side of you is the frosted glass door. Behind you is the house and bathroom. The other two sides have no cover at all and are just open to the air. If you look up through the bushes you can see the traffic driving by, completely oblivious to what’s going on nearby. With the hot water raining down and the steam drifting off into the sky, along with a cool breeze blowing through, it’s really amazing. We have vowed to return to this one again when it’s a bit warmer and firefly time. I have a bunch of photos and a video of the trail and waterfalls, etc but my k800i phone has died. I ordered a new one from eBay and Three is going to send me one gratis, but theirs will take some time to arrive.
On the way home we stopped at the Fudge shop and bought some. I bought two chunks and Cath bought three.. one for her dad. There was one called CS Cowboy but they didn’t write what the CS stood for.
So, after all that we decided we can last four days together without any problems. It was the longest we’ve been together and we had a blast. Things are definitely going really well. 
