Another Easter in Oz

So, I've been here over a year now, and another Autumn approaches. Temperatures are beginning to drop, although it's all relative. I pass a public thermometer on a hotel sign on my walk to work at about 7am. I've noticed over the last couple of weeks that the temperature has been dropping; it was in the mid-20s, and it's now down to 16 Celsius.

Talking of changing temperatures, we took a trip south-west for the Easter weekend. Stanthorpe always appears on the TV weather reports as having cooler temperatures than we have in Brisbane. It's only two and a half hours drive away, but on nights when the temperature doesn't drop below 20 in Brissy it can be 10 in Stanthorpe. Ella's parents organised a pleasant weekend for us and Ella's family near to Stanthorpe. I drove Ella, Jana and Ingrid down on Good Friday in a decidingly full Triumph (we were loaded to the gunnels with provisions for the weekend).

The accomodation was spot on. "Escape on Tully" (Mt Tully was the name of the area we stayed in) was well kitted out with gas BBQ, kitchen, two bathrooms, etc. There was even an outdoor bath on the veranda!!!


We were well placed to investigate Giraween National Park (I should probably keep count of all these Parks I'm visiting), so on Saturday we did a great walk. The area's known as 'The Granite Belt', and there are incredible rocks and peaks, bolders, and so on. We did a good long walk up over Mt. Norman and back. Here's the troops enjoying a well deserved lunch:



Well-deserved because we'd just walked up a granite slope like this (photo shows Ingrid and Ella):


A short drive home after a long walk was nice and we got to enjoy a lovely sunset from the veranda:


We all took it in turns cooking over the three nights, which was a lot of fun and certainly spread the workload. On Easter Sunday we took it a bit easier, back at Giraween doing a short walk before lunch, along the river in an almost surreal granite river bed. We all had a splash around in the waterhole and then back home for lunch and a relaxing afternoon.



We headed home on Monday morning taking a less direct route, along dirt tracks (called the Mount Lindsay Highway!) between some other beautiful National Parks.
This photo shows Mount Linsay in the distance (I think):


Altogether a very nice weekend indeed. It provided a suitable send-off for Ingrid, too, as she left to join her boyfriend in Frankfurt on the Tuesday. Good luck Ingrid!
Many thanks to Helen and Jacques for the excellent food and accommodation.

I'm currently experiencing one of those "I wish I had a camera on me" moments.
Looking out of my sixth floor office window I can see two abseilers cleaning the opposite building's windows. It would make a great photo! I can't find the office camera, either. Let's hope the storm we had yesterday doesn't come back soon.

Meanwhile life plods on ...

Work hasn't been exactly thrilling. I don't feel particularly challenged, or even very busy. I'm taking a long hard look at what it is that I would like to do, though, and expect this will mean a significant change... maybe even re-training.

Ella's been working really hard on her teacher training as well as lecturing undergraduate students, so she's pushed to find any leisure time at the moment. We have managed to get out to Brisbane Forest Park at the weekends, however. The forest is massive and covers much of the West of Brisbane and we can get there in 15 minutes drive from our house. It used to be logged, but seems to be protected now.

This photo from the edge of the forest shows how close the city is.

The walking trails aren't signposted, but can be followed on a map... at first we thought this was unusual and a bit stingy, but now realise that it could be because of the difficult terrain! There are many extremely steep sections. I tried to get photos to prove it, but it's not easy to show the gradient using photos. The forest is great, with rainforest and dry forest intermingling, ruined only by the electricity pylons. Our plan is to try and walk all of the accessible tracks.