I had packed ready for the tour before going to sleep, so when I got up at 6.40 and showered, I made it to the kitchen before it had opened! I sat and waited a while, and at 7.02 the receptionist arrived and unlocked everywhere.
First order of the day was a bacon sandwich. I didn't make any sandwiches for lunch as the tour included a BBQ lunch. SOmeone had been waiting outside for reception to open too, and had apparently missed closing time the night before like I had previously.
I waited outside, and met Trent, the tour guide, at 8am. When I got on the bus my first impression was that it was a Chinese tour guide, but I was quite wrong with that, and I was later glad that I hadn't said anything!
I was the last person to be picked up, and the bus was full, 17 of us in total on the tour. Our first port of call was Mount Tamborine, where we were driven up an AWD track to the summit, for some nice views through the trees. There were better views rom the residential areas, but since they were residential, we couldn't get out to admire them as much. During this time I met a young person from Singapore, and we talked about travlling and Australia.
We then went on to the morning tea place, Joalah, which served a selection of tea, coffee hot chocolate, and some scones with butter and jam. We then all went on a bush walk to Curtis Falls, during which Trent showed us some plants to avoid - one having sharp hooks on its leaves that can catch you and not let go - another being like stinging nettles only much worse, the Gympie Gympie tree. A quick google search reveals how bad it is - the tag line being 'Once Stung, Never Forgotten'!
We were also shown some different varieties of fig, one a sandpaper fig, which has very tough and rough feeling leaves, and the other being the strangler fig. The latter uses a host tree to get to the forest canopy, then grows feeler roots down until they reach the soil, where they take hold and eventually starve the host tree of light.
On this walk, I got talking with more of the group from Singapore, 4 in total, 3 boys and their father. The father was quite taken with the fact that I was from Scotland travelling on my own, and so when we got to Tamborine Village for souvenir shopping and wine tasting, he gave me his card and introduced his sons to me. They suggested giving me their western names to be easier to remember, but I advised I would rather learn their proper names:
Alvin (Father), Ren Hong, Xin Liung, and Xin Pin
We had a look around the German Cuckoo Clock shop - I don't think I have seen so many cuckoo clocks all in one place at the same time before - it felt quite eerie, and I suggested to the others in the tour that it might make a great setting for a horror movie, which they all agreed on.
At 1130h we headed on to Spring Gully Stays, in Kanungra, a very pleasant farm steading with a creek, for the BBQ lunch. Kanungra translates as 'Valley of the Owls' and as the name suggests, a lot of different types of owls live in the area.
I had ordered fish, though steak was available, or a vegetarian option too, all came with salad, and then fruit for dessert. My fish, Perch, was delicious, and certainly went down a treat!
After lunch we had the option of going swimming in the creek, which due to my sunburn I decided against, or learning how to throw a boomerang. I decided to opt for that, as did Ren Hong, and both Xins. Trent made it look easy, but all of the rest of us really struggled, and the boys were a little too enthusiastic about throwing before the way was clear, resulting in me being clobbered in the head and shoulder when one hit me as I was picking my own one up!
After lunch we started on the way to Lamington National Park, and got to see some Grey Kangaroos, quite a large mob of maybe 15 or so, who all decided to hop it once we started to drive away.
After about a 40 minute drive we reach O'Reilly's guest house, or the Green mountains, where we went on a treetop board walk. Each plank on the suspension bridge like walk, had name tags on the side, and when I asked later about them, was advised they wre the names of all the volunteers who helped to make the walk.
On my way back, I went past a group that was being given a guided commentary on their walk, and it was interrupted by a crimson rosella which decided to just land on the heads of the people there! It clearly didn't mind about people, though I suspect that was down to the fact that there is a feeding area back at the car park.
A bit further along on the way back, and there was a large skink lizard, relative of the blue tongued lizard. Again it didn't seem to mind the people looking at it, though someone from my group looked like he might try to poke it with a stick before his partner stopped him thankfully.
I made it to the bird feeding area, and Trent gave me some feed. As suggested, I headed to where it was more shaded, and as I was the first and only person there, was soon covered from head to toe with crimson rosellas and king parrots, all fighting to get at the food, some on my head, several on my arms at once, and many at my feed picking up the food that was being spread by the feeding frenzy above!
The last stop of the tour was Kamarun lookout, which afforded excellent views of the great divide (the mountain range that goes south to meet the blue mountains), the point of interested there for me being Mount Lindsay, which looked like a vocanic plug.
We could also see the Q1 tower, the highest sky scraper in Surfers Paradise, as well as Brisbane, though the latter wasn't really visible, due to the smog, but Trent did assure us it was there!
At this point, I met another couple who were on the same tour, who were both from Vietnam, so we chatted about life there and the guy advised me about the best places to go to get good mosquito repellent, that being Circle k convenience store!
I got back to the hostel, and met two of my new room mates - a girl from Belgium and a guy from England - both had already met previously in Cairns so knew each other, and they had both independantly deided to go on the same pub crawl - I declined, as my kayak and snorkeling trip tomorrow starts at 7am and I didn't really fancy doing that after having been on a pub crawl!
I spent the rest of the evening booking up the rest of the hostel accomodation for the trip, since I now had all the flights and destinations set, and the commentary Trent had been giving reminded me that it was about to be peak season for tourism in the area whih meant the places would be filling up quickly.
While writing up the last of the journal notes, Nicola from Bristol (UK) arrived. She was also in the north, and also didn't want to go on a pub crawl, having stayed in 10 and 12 bed dorms recently and feeling pretty tired.
Closer to 9pm, Rose arrives with more luggage than her size would suggest - I have yet to find out where she is from, but she didn't hang around long before going in to town with her friend Sarah, who had been helping her get her stuff in to the room.
I aimed to go to bed for 10pm, but that didnt happen as just as I was doing some Japanese reviews outside, a new room mate, Rose from Italy arrived, along with a group of other people and ended up talking for a couple of hours about accents, ages (3 out of 4 people guessed that I was 27 - I must be doing something right here!), and ended up going to bed at midnight!