On the fifth day of our visit to Australia, we met Michael & Rebecca in the Lamington National Park for a picnic lunch. After our "usual" buffet breakfast at Courtyard (we knew it was usual because the servers were pulling out a high chair and calling Koji by name from the minute we arrived), we took off for an area of Lamington called Binna Burra. Binna Burra is one part of the Gold Coast "hinterland (another Oz expression that struck me funny!)". Apparently it's not "the outback" because it's not far enough from civilization, as Rebecca explained to me later. The picture above is a bit hard to make out here; I took it because we had been driving and driving and not seeing much of anything in the way of indication that we were drawing near to Binna Burra. Suddenly, we hit this perfectly city-fied roundabout with accompanying large sign pointing us on to our destination! Upon arrival, and after
morning tea, we went for a "bushwalk" around the Rainforest Circuit. This was supposedly a short 1.2 km trek with not too many ups and downs, so we foolishly decided it would be a great idea to take along M & R's rather large "pram" in case any of the kiddies didn't want to walk any more. Let's just say we made a memory on that there hike! Once we had theoretically worked up an appetite or burned off our morning tea or something, it was time to
throw some burgers on the "barbie (note: I never actually heard any Australians using this word in reference to a barbeque). There we were supposedly in a remote location, but why should that stop us from having access to a very fine gas barbeque, waiting there to grill our Aussie beef burgers to perfection. Answer: it shouldn't! This is a note to American parks and other outdoor facilities; how about a "barbie" upgrade? The so-called barbeques at that lakeside park in Evanston, I can't remember the name at the moment but eewww, they are well overdue for replacement! I digress...
So we ate some burgers and accoutrements (of course I wanted to use the word, and of course it really means that I can't remember what else we ate), then blew some bubbles with the kids and did some impromptu bird watching when a kookaburra showed up in the tree overhead, prompting Rebecca to sing a famous Australian kids' song. Gotta speed this up, it's taking me too long to tell! After that, you'd think food wouldn't be on our minds but knowing there was some sort of a lodge nearby (see the Binna Burra link above), we went after some coffee. Fortunately, outside the dining room we found posted the schedule at left. That's when we knew we would feel right at home there, and that would be more than welcome to bring a few hobbits along too!