Tallebudgera Valley and surrounds

Arrived in Tallebudgera and spent a lovely couple of days with Tonys sister Rosita, during the day she was working so we took the opportunity to go to Springbrrook National Park.  The day was a bit overcast but we got to walk the 4km track down and around Purling Brook Falls, the track ran behind the fall where I got to pose for a photo shoot and Tony got to play photographer - I got soaking wet.  The gorge views and cliff faces were amazing and very beautiful. 

The weather wasnt over startling but we were fortunate to do this walk before the rain really set in.  We had hoped to get in the Twin Falls walk from the Canyon lookout where through the clouds, mist, rain we got awesome glimpses of Surfers Paradise. 

It was too wet to do the walk so we checked out the campground which was very impressive, but we didnt use it, and The Best Ever Lookout from which we saw - NOTHING - only just being able to see what we couldnt see on an information board!!!!  It was quite a walk from the aircraft transmitting tower to the lookout and Tony was lucky enough to pick up a hitchhiker in his sock in the form of a leech!!!!!!  He didnt know it was there until he took his shoes off back at the van and then 'almost bled to death' (men) - two and a half hours after taking the leech off it was still bleeding - disgusting thing.  Tony found the leech really interesting to observe and spent this time playing with it. 

We spent the night in the carpark hoping the weather would clear so we could check out the view from the Best Ever lookout however by 9am it was obvious nothing was going to happen so we made our way down to sea level, 1000m.  We decided to explore the Gold Coast highway, starting at the top of SH2 with our first stop at Labrador where we had breakfast and were entertained by pelicans, asians and their cameras!!!!  The highlight being the pelicans. 

hows this for landing gear

From there we went out to the spit at Seaworld where we cleverly locked the keys in the van.  Fortunately George had a spare key. 

We went for a walk on the spit and people pulling these vicious worms out of the sand to use for bait - yuck i never knew these things were under my feet, not sure i want to walk on the beach again as some of them were over a metre long, the big ones tend to fight back and snap their heads off which grow back - gross.

Next stop Surfers Paradise where we explored the city centre and markets before making our way to Burleigh Heads where we spent the night.

our most elaborate Park bench so far

The next day we spent at Point Danger (Tweed heads/Coolongatta) watching the wild surf and surfers - very entertaining and a relaxing spot.  Only a few days later the breakers were awesome and the beach closed because of the conditions - not that it didnt stop those few hardy or foolish people.

from Point Danger lookout, a couple of days later this track was closed, the grass slope on the left is where we stood to watch the surf below



just before the wave broke - the photographer got wet, the assistant ran for cover



Back to Rositas and Marks place for xmas - a lovely day spent with Tonys family, thank you very much for sharing it with us.