Our adventure to the Southwest

Over the weekend we drove a large loop to the southwest of Brisbane about 2.5 hours. This meant driving up and over the Great Dividing Range or the Eastern Highlands, which is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the 4th longest in the world ~2,100 miles. Now don't be thinking these are similar to the Rocky Mountains - more like the Appalachians, only their high peaks are in the South (the Snowy Mountain Range) as opposed to the Appalachians being in the North. Beautiful though, and especially since we've have had lots of welcome rain lately (summer is the wet season) the grass was green and high with lots of beautiful wildflowers. It reminded us of the foothills of northern California in the spring.
Our destination was Queen Mary National Park where we took a short hike to Queen Mary Falls through more beautiful eucalyptus forest.

Afterwards we made some new friends.

A Crimson Rosella on the left and an Australian King-parrot on the right - these are wild birds that have gotten used to being fed by people in the park.

We spent the night in Warwick and attended Church this morning in their little Branch. They are very excited for construction to begin on their very own chapel this coming spring. Their current building is one of the most unique and beautiful I've ever seen, but they're very cramped in there.

And last but not least, as with every Woodward adventure - we had rain! I've said it before though - in this country, you don't ever complain about rain; you thank the good Lord for every drop! Tomorrow we continue our timeoff from work and head to the beach for a surfing lesson at Noosa - this is tempered by the fact a swimmer was taken by a shark yesterday near Perth (other side of the country). Yikes! what are we thinking?