To Frogknot via Yowie Country.

Cunninghams Gap is presently blocked by a huge boulder that fell onto the road so we had to find a different way up the Great Dividing Range to Stanthorpe. We went via Beaudesert and Rathdownie on The Mount Lindesay Highway.

We passed close by Mount Lindesay. It looks very ‘Lost World’ ish and is now my favourite Australian mountain to date.[gallery ids="897,898,899"]There is apparently one scrambling track up it but you have to have climbing experience and should go with a guide. It has claimed a number of lives over the years, the latest in 2011. After passing the mountain we headed up through the rainforest. Will likes to wind down the windows to fill the car with the scent of the rainforest. I like hearing the bellbirds dinging and donging to each other as we drive past...actually it is more of a ping than a ding or a dong.Halfway up we noticed “Yowies Cross Here” written on the road in white paint, and a series of large white footprints were painted across the road.A Yowie is the Australian equivalent of the American Sasquatch or the Himalayan Yeti. It is a large hairy humanoid beast that roams the rainforest on the Great Dividing Range. One of the prominent Yowie hunters is Rex Gilroy, who hails from Gympie, where Will was born and Dulcie’s maiden name is Gilroy...so perhaps they are related!We didn’t see any Yowie’s until we got to Woodenbong!

The Woodenbong Yowie!

The next bit of the road was a bit rough. Tenterfield Council had put signs up saying they were seeking funding from the Federal Government to upgrade it. It was obviously a sore point by the number of handpainted signs I saw outside people’s houses: “This road is rubbish!” “This road kills cars!” The same council, I noted, also had put up signs pointing out that they had rebuilt a number of bridges along the route.The road turned to dirt at one point and on a corner we came across a number of police and fire rescue vehicles. As we slowly passed they were wheeling someone into an ambulance and the car they had been in was on its side down an embankment.Finally we arrived in Stanthorpe. The journey took just over three hours, only an extra 30 minutes longer than the Cunninghams Gap route.We got supplies at the IGA and then headed on up to Frogknot. All was as we left it. Will set up the new regulator but as the sky was overcast there was very little chance of us getting any charge that day.Ros arrived later in the afternoon to spend the weekend with us. She was amazed at the changes since she had last visited. The vegetables we had planted last week were growing well and had not been nibbled.We went out to the rocks to watch the sunset before tea and spent another candlelit evening before an early night.

There was a fabulous moon tonight.

I awoke in the night to hear something nibbling, right by my head, at my packet of heartburn tablets. I banged on the bed and it scuttled off, whatever it was. I don’t think it was Rambo because there were no other noises all night and definitely no rattlings in the kitchen. Will thinks it was an Antechinus, a marsupial mouse.