Our last day in the bunya mountains

On the Friday, we woke up early and packed up our things.

Everyone helped, even KT

Once we got the bulk of the work done KT watched "James and the Giant Peach" on the kids TV and video and uni and I took care of last minute things.

We were out by 10.45 ... check out time was 10am ...but I think that's the best checkout time we have ever achieved and this time we did it with KT in tow!

On our way out of the Bunya mountains we took a 2.7km bushwalk from Westcott along the "Koondali Circuit".

We stopped at Blackbutt for lunch (yummy) and a quick pitstop at Kilcoy.

Since we would be back in the neighbourhood just before the dog kennels opened we decided to pick out pooch up on the way home and all arrive home together.

Uni and Kt had also decided it might be fun to go out for dinner to Mamma's restaurant so we wouldn't have to worry about cooking.

Excellent plan!!!

I pretty much unpacked and put away everything on the night of our arrival home. Admittedly a lot of our stuff was destined for the washing machine, but I still think it was a terrific effort.

The mound of washing and ironing followed and I think I have commented on that already in this blog.

On our next day in the Bunya Mountains

After our late night at the observatory, we (uni and I) were in no hurry to get up early.

Kt of course had other ideas and surprised us by only sleeping in for one hour instead of the 2 to 3 we were expecting.

I got up reluctantly and we had a normal breaky while uni slept in. He would be making pancakes for us later, but rather than wait without breaky until mid morning I decided to just have two meals.

After pancakes we sat in the kids lounge and watched a video of Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs, which we all really enjoyed.

Then we ate a spaghetti and sausage lunch before finally leaving the house at about 3pm!

We went for a short 500m bushwalk before arriving at the starting site for our Clydesdale horse and cart tour to the top of Mowbullan Township.

This was a 45 minute cart ride, with 2 beautiful Clydesdale horses. The views were spectacular, the pace was slow and steady and Kt along with the two other young girls on board, got to sit up the front up high near the driver.

Kt even got a turn holding the reins. We have a photo on uni's camera .... will have to try and figure out how to get it from the camera onto the computer!

We all had a great time, Kt in particular!!! We were very proud of her for volunteering straight away to sit up the front. She is such a brave girl these days!

That night was meant to be our dinner at the Cider Gum restaurant but when we got back from our ride there was a note slipped under our door to say that dinner was cancelled as they did not have enough bookings to keep the restaurant open.

If we had wanted to we could have ordered from their menu and had them bring the meal to our accommodation, but we decided to just make a meal at home instead. Their prices were pretty high ... much more than normal take away would be.

We had a great night, Kt and uni cooked dinner together and we had a delicious dessert. We had a much earlier night and started preparations for packing up in the morning.

Maidenwell Observatory

Last Wednesday night at 7.30pm we headed off to the Maidenwell observatory for the "moon and stars" show. http://www.starsabove.com.au/

It is about 30 minutes from the Bunya mountains to Maidenwell, but it took us more like 45minutes.

All of the brochures for the show had pictures of everyone rugged up wearing beanies, scarves etc, so we made sure we were fully protected.

I wore long johns under a pair of fleecy trackpants, thick socks and joggers. I put KT in thick woolly tights under a pair of fleecy trackpants too. On the top half I wore a long sleeved thermal undershirt with two more light long sleeve layers on top and a big heavy jacket. Kt wore the same configuration. We also took gloves and beanies.

We arrived early and there was only one other car load of people ... we thought that would be it, but by starting time there were something like 25 people!

First we headed outside to view the stars that Astronomer James pointed out with his green laser pointer. Maidenwell apparently has had all its streetlights changed to allow maximum view of the stars with little interference from other lights.

Then we headed "inside" the shed where he keeps his telescopes.

There were three big telescopes set up in a row and there was bench seating all around the perimeter of the shed. We had to divide ourselves up into three groups to share the telescopes.

Jim turned off the lights, started up the theme from "Space Odyssey" and before we knew it he was rolling back the roof of the shed to reveal the night sky. I think I would have like to see this from the outside too!!!

He had a ladder set up beside each telescope so that kids could climb up and easily look through the eyepiece, the ladder was also there for the adults to use to steady themselves so they didn't go crashing into the telescope.

If I had a better memory I would be able to relate all the things we looked at, but what I do remember was that each picture was different and interesting.

I think the first think we viewed was one of the the stars that makes up the pointers ... to the naked eye it looks like it is only one star but through the telescope you could see that it was actually two stars side by side.

Kt had a look and could not see it and we worried that the night would end up being a total loss for her. I looked next and could see two very bright lights ... like two torch lights.

We both tried to help Kt be positive about the whole experience and we told her she would have to take her time and look into the eyepiece and adjust her head position and move her eye around until she saw something. I told her to imagine she was a detective looking through her magnifying glass.... looking for stars.

We held our breath as she looked at the next site which was a star system/galaxy ..... she looked in for a minute and then she said "I saw it" and with great delight she continued to fully take in all the rest of the stars. This second one was really spectacular, it looked like a burst of yellow fireworks. There were so many stars and they were in a spiral shape ... it was like an explosion of little lights. This one was my favourite!!

The next one we saw was an open cluster of stars and this looked like a smattering of very bright stars a bit like diamonds scattered on a dark velvet cloth.

We also got several close ups of the moon. It was incredible to look at its whole surface and then focus in on all the craters. It was really bright to look at too, Jim ended up putting an orange and a yellow filter on it to cut out some of the glare.

Uni was really impressed with the close ups of the craters while I particular liked being able to see the whole of the moon ... we were about 2 nights off a full moon so most of the moon was visible.

Jupiter was right next to the moon and very very bright ... at the moment it is directly overhead in the night sky.

We closed in on her and 3 of her moons. They were all the same size and in a perfectly straight row .... quite fabulous! Jupiter was kind of stripy and apparently egg shaped although it wasn't obvious to me!!! LOL!!!

Overall the show went for 2 hours and by the end Kt was getting tired. She did look at everything though and got up onto the ladder by herself ... often looking for longer than either I or Uni.

I was keen to find the nearest toilet .... and uni was keen to buy merchandise!!!

We came home with this years and next years calendars with information on where the stars will be in the night sky etc. He also bought a couple of solar system DVD's which should be of interest.

I think it was a really amazing and magical night and I have caught myself looking up at the stars much more regularly!!!

By the time we got back to Pepperbury and got Kt to bed it was 11pm. Neither uni or I were quite ready for bed straight away although I was tired.

We watched a comedy DVD and ended up falling asleep at about 1am.

I fully expected that we would all sleep in the next day ... so I wasn't worried about the lateness of the night.

Little did I know Kt would only sleep in for 1 hour ... waking up at about 8.30am!!!

soap fairy ...

Before I continue my holiday log I will just mention that today is the first day of term 4, so KT is back at school after 2 weeks holiday and it is also the first day back at work for uni who has had the last 4 weeks on holiday.

The house is quiet and very messy, my routines all went out the window over the last few weeks and I have a strong urge to re-establish order.

We are planning to host Christmas this year so I have the next 2and a half months to get things sorted out before the holiday period begins again.

I also need to finish painting that fence!!!! I don't think I have gone near it for about 2 weeks!

Ok enough of the good intentions ... back to the bunyas ...

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On our second day we woke up bright and early (me and KT) and had crumpets for breakfast.

We dressed warmly for the cooler mountain air and once Uni had also woken and breakfasted, we headed down to explore our surroundings.

Uni started us on the 4km scenic loop bush walk. When we went to take our first photo of the trip we discovered that my camera battery was dead. I have to have it recharging right up to the moment I want to start taking photos. Very disappointing, but luckily uni has a camera phone so we did get an occasional holiday shot.

As always the Bunya mountains bush walks are lovely. There was a lot less water there than last time we had visited (before KT was born) and in fact the water fall was only a trickle which took us a bit by surprise.

After about half an hour of walking we passed some older girls and their parents who informed us that they had been walking for an hour an a half. I smiled at the girls feeling certain they were exaggerating the time. We had only been walking for half an hour and I thought we were close to half way at the time.

Another hour and a half later when we finally cleared the rainforest I realized that they had been accurate!!! LOL!!!

We did stop a lot to look around and to allow KT to climb the stranger fig that Uni had climbed 20 years back when he was a kid etc.

By the time we were done I was ravenous! Also very keen to use the toilet since we had completely depleted our water bottle supply.

And so continues the legend of the soap fairy .....

I often feel frustrated when we go for adventures out and about and find that after going to the toilet there is no soap for washing your hands especially when I know we are about to stop for a picnic lunch. I thought I could overcome this problem by buying a product from avon that is in a tub and you carry with you and wash your hands with it ... but I found it messy to deal with and only used it once.

I came up with my own solution to collect the slivers of soap left in the shower once you have used most of your bar of soap.

I don't like to waste things that I think are useful and I had no drama using soap up until it was nonexistent after which I would stick it onto the new soap.

Unfortunately Uni does not share my passion for using every last drop of things (soap, toothpaste, tomato sauce, milk etc) and for some unknown reason it would drive him absolutely crazy when I attached a tiny slice of old soap to the new one. :-P Men!

Anyway after his regular objections I started to collect these little bits of soap, leave them to dry on the bathroom basin and put them into a ziplock bag.

I thought we could use them when we go camping .... and of course now I can carry them in my handbag when we go far afield and take one out each time we use a soap free public toilet and then leave it there for whoever else comes after us to use too. If I think I am likely to return to that toilet again I leave a bigger soap sliver, if it is only a one time visit I use a smaller sliver!

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After returning from our bushwalk we had a late BBQ lunch at "Pepperberry" at 3pm.

Just as we were finishing our meal we got a visit from a friend KT had made the previous day.

It was a king parrot .... these guys are green with a red head and are very friendly and not afraid of people at all.

They have regular feeding sessions at the bunya mountains kiosk area, but we brought some bird seed so we could feed some birds off our own verandah.

Uni went to get KT a handful of birdseed while she chatted to the bird, meanwhile I continued to eat my lunch as I was still 1/4 ravenous!!!

When uni poured a handful of food into Kts palm the bird leapt onto her arm and started eating it.

Kt was delighted! She stayed perfectly still and let the bird eat and it was hilarious to see and hear it cracking and dehusking each seed with its beak.

It wasn't long before its mate joined us and uni filled his own hand with seed and joined in the feeding.

I still wasn't prepared to be parted from my lunch and continued to nibble away, but things got cut short when I crunched on my carrot and the birds took off in shock!!!

Oooops .......

halfway through the mountain

Feeling a bit more settled today.

I have gotten half way through my ironing pile ... although at the moment I have a clothesline full of clothes ... so by this evening my ironing pile will have tripled again!!

I have lice combed Kt's hair and found only a few eggs ... battle drawing to an end.

I have washed the dog ... I hope she is actually cleaner now than when I started because she has rubbed herself through grass and dirt to get herself dry!!!


We have had a fabulous holiday in the Bunya Mountains.

The first day we headed off at about 10.30am and slowly made our way stopping for morning tea and to buy some bird seed in Kilcoy.

We took the Benarkin turnoff and stopped at Emu Creek campgrounds for lunch. Uni has apparently passed this many times and always wanted to stop there so we took this opportunity to do it.

We liked the spot so much we will add it to our list of possible camp sites. It has toilets and showers and is quite secluded ... but when I looked at the facilities I didn't notice if they had hot and cold water ... so the showers may be "cold" showers ......


We got to the Bunya Mountains at about 4 o'clock and found our accommodation in no time.

This time we stayed at "Pepperberry". Uni chose it for its privacy, 3/4 wrap around verandas and its spaciousness. It had 3 bedrooms and could sleep 6 people, 2 lounge rooms (1 of which was particularly meant for the kids).

When we got in KT had to choose which room she wanted as her own. She ended up picking the one with the desk in it and she tucked pink teddy and fluffy into one of the beds as soon as I had made it.

We had to take our own linen, sheets, towels and pillowcases, but they provide pillows, doonas, blankets and electric blankets.

We had a great fire which Uni kept well fueled through the cold nights.... with plenty of twig and pine cone gathering help from KT!

We were really pleased to discover that they had a DVD player and a video player ... the details on the Internet had been sketchy and even a phone call to the Bunya mountains accommodation centre couldn't clear up this issue for us.... they manage so many places they don't know exactly what is in each one and were not prepared to send anyone to look and tell us!!!

Although we had intended to have an early night, finding your way around a new place, unpacking, cooking dinner and cleaning up afterwards takes time.

I turned on Kts electric blanket about an hour in advance of bedtime only to discover that it was not plugged in at the wall when I got her to climb into bed!!!!

Arggghhhh ... luckily it did not take long for it to warm up ... and it was so warm she ended up being on top of the covers for ages!

When I finally curled up on top of my warm electric blanket it took all of minutes to fall asleep!!! This was a blessing as I usually can't fall asleep easily in a new place the first night.