The starting point

The starting point

Thursday, 4 May 2017

4/5/17 Fish & falls

  Goondiwindi is just a speck in the rear view mirror now , we have moved again - to Warwick , or more precisely Lake Leslie , about 14klms out .
 As a bonus Garry & Robbie came up for a visit and stayed the night , we had a great catch up with them !!
  Lake Leslie , was named after Patrick Leslie who was an early farmer and did a lot for the early establishment of Warwick & surrounding area .
  This is the dam wall & spillway -


And the water side -



 While walking along the dam wall we spotted turtles , schools of fish about 100mm long , and some big fish up to a metre long !!!


  The feather floating on the surface gives an idea of the size of this fish -


  This one is only about 300mm long -


 This is the creek below the dam wall -


  The dam isn't large , but they use it for waterskiing , canoeing , sailing and fishing . Their is a sailing club and a fishing club that also restock the dam with fish . You can drive down to the water in a lot of places to access the water .


 There's a picnic area that goes down to this section of the creek below the dam wall .


  Today we headed out to Killarney for a look at some waterfalls . Killarney sits on some very rich dark soils and is located on the western side of the scenic rim area . Not far out of town you turn off the main road and head toward the hills , our first stop was Brown's Falls . It involved a 600m walk up the creek bed through the rainforest . There are some huge trees here , quite a few Hoop Pines , some of which have fallen across the creek . There were numerous small cascades on the walk up to the falls . The weather was overcast and drizzly showers , but under the canopy of the rainforest we were pretty dry , the upside - it gave me the opportunity to play with the camera in the lower light conditions - here's some of the results !!



 Here's a photo of the creek with Lyn on the left to give some scale to the photo .


 After more rock hopping and scrambling up & down the banks we arrived at the falls -



 This is the section just below the main falls -


 Some more of the creek on the way back down .



  I could have spent all afternoon playing around with the camera , but there were more falls to check out . The weather hadn't improved any , if anything the rain seemed to have set in more . Up the road further was Daggs Falls - an unfortunate name , but it looked good as well . The lookout is just beside the road , and a walkway just off the carpark gives you views from above .



  After some lunch we headed off again , Queen Mary Falls is higher up the mountain and was also wetter again . Umbrellas out , we walked down to the top of the falls - a bitumen path leads you down  and then around to the lookout .


 
  From above , we could see there was a walking track down below , the water from the falls was flowing under the bridge below , this is the water beside the bridge .


 This photo is of the top of the falls -


 After seeing the track down below , we thought lets go , rain or not we have our umbrella's and it's only 2klms from the carpark and return .
 The track down is in great condition - bitumen for most of the way , and winding it's way along the valley sides down to the base of the falls . The rainforest was living up to it's name , rain falling consistently , but it was a magnificent walk through the rainforest , trees towering above us !!




 We had the walk to ourselves - probably due to the weather conditions - and enjoyed it thoroughly !!
Back to the ute , we headed off toward Carr's Lookout , another 8klms up the road . It would be a spectacular lookout on a fine day , we think , today we couldn't see more than about 50m in front of us due to the fog - sorry , cloud that we were in !!! The drive up to it is a windy road through more dense forest - absolutely beautiful !!
  With nothing more to see ( due to the low cloud ) , we headed back to Warwick and refuelled , ready for our drive tomorrow .
  Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nzM9vXvp38Uu_l_TmaujON7PvVM&usp=sharing

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