Tamborine Mountain

There was some rain overnight but by the time the sun came up it had cleared but man, it was humid! We figured we couldn't take the heat on the beach today so we headed back to the hinterland. We had picked up some information about Tamborine Mountain which appeared to be a combination of a small town with shops, galleries and cafe's and a National Park. We found that yesterday it was a lot cooler when we got up to a higher elevation so we decided to take a drive to check it out.

We stopped at a resort on the mountain that Mel Gibson used to own which had a great overlook of the coast and Surfer's Paradise. Too bad it was a bit hazy from the humidity.

The little town had a main street with a number of eateries and shops. Not quite a Niagara-on-the-Lake experience but we managed to spend an hour browsing.

The most intriguing to me was the German Clock Shop. Hundreds of coo koo clocks and other German timepieces.

We bought some lamingtons* for later this evening then stopped for lunch at a cute outdoor cafe.

We did a little walk through another rainforest to a Curtis Falls. Not as spectacular as yesterday and a fairly muddy trail.

We slowly made our way back to town and had two great overlooks. The first looking inland to the west.

Next, a great view of Surfers Paradise on the coast. The humidity was starting to clear.

We got back to the apartment mid afternoon and went across the street to the park to sit in the shade and read our books, taking in the traffic on the waterway.

We were going to go into Surfers Paradise for supper but decided against the 5 km drive after seeing the amount of weekend traffic today. A 20 minute walk down the street to a Japanese restaurant looked more appealing. They featured Teppanyaki style cooking where the chef prepared our food at the table and entertained with his grille work and conversation. I had the Moreton Bay Bugs** and Chris had scallops. A fabulous meal and we met a very nice young couple at the table who gave us lots of travel advice for our trip north to Cairns.

* A lamington is a dessert of Australian origin. It consists of squares of sponge cake coated first in a layer of traditionally chocolate sauce, then in desiccated coconut.

** T. orientalis is known by a number of common names. The United nations Food and Agriculture Association prefers the name flathead lobster, while the official Australian name is Bay lobster. In Australia, it is more widely known as the Moreton Bay bug after Moreton Bay, near Brisbane Queensland