2 Texans Down Under

Fog was still burning off in low places Sunday morning as Kristi and I headed south from Brisbane to the Main Range National Park, which is part of what is called, with good reason, “the Scenic Rim.”

Less than an hour and a half after leaving home, we were in Cunningham Gap, parked in a roadside lot containing only one other car, and ready to hike up Bare Rock Trail.

In the 1820s, explorer Allan Cunningham saw the possibilities for a pass through the dividing range here and now the Cunningham Highway carries sometimes heavy car and truck traffic past the start of the trail, but within half an hour or so we walked beyond its distracting sounds.

Soon we were standing still and listening to a fascinating concert of bird calls and trills and flourishes from what could only have been a lyre bird, though we never saw her. After 10 minutes or more she quit as suddenly as she’d started and we felt like applauding.

Most of the treats of the day were for the eyes, though. The Scenic Rim’s eastern part is more popular and includes Lamington and Springbrook resort areas, both of which are wonderful places for forest hikes, but this poor-cousin park to their southwest is spectacular in its own right.

We’d been on the trail for two hours or more before we saw other humans, perhaps because we started at 8:15. On our trip down, which ended about five hours later, we met 20 or 30 people going up, singly, in pairs, and in groups. Even then, the trail did not seem crowded.

What we saw from Mt. Cordeaux Lookout, the high point at Bare Rock, and other vistas was well worth our time and energy — lines of blue, jagged-peaked mountains stretching off into the distance and between us and them, many square miles of rolling hills covered in blond grass. How big. How open.

We saw few birds and no animal life as we moved through alternating sections of regular (i.e., gum-tree) and rain forest, but the Hoop Pines, a Spear Lily in full bloom, the giant ferns, and scores of ancient grass trees kept us entertained and sometimes amazed.

We experienced one more instance of the variety of worthwhile destinations there are to be found within two hours drive of the city in which we have been fortunate enough to alight.

Even the Sunday afternoon drive home was not bad. Next, we hope to explore Frasier Island. Then, perhaps, Uluru and Alice Springs, but that certainly won’t be a day trip. If I’m impressed by the open vistas of what we’ve just seen, and I am, I may be overwhelmed by the openness of the out back.