[05 May 07]
A beautiful waterfall with swimming hole on a mountain high, is what you can expect to see at this hidden treasure! Good natural swimming locales, at least for me, are hard to come by. But this one is now no.2 on the list.
If your heading toward Noosa or Maroochydore from Brisbane, be sure to take the scenic route along the way, its only a few minutes longer & you get a good view of the Glasshouse Mountains (i hope to climb at least one before i head off to Europe), coinsidentaly it was also a direct path to our destination. After our 2 hour drive to get there our bodies were sore & in need of a good walk, including my mother & step-father who doubled behind us on moterbike. And to our surprise, even before starting the track we ran into a goanna. For those you don't know, it's a big lizard. It was not overly interested by us & wandered away to bask in the sun. You even see it's long tongue in the photo.
Not long after beginning the track you come across a tiny creek waterfall, its cute, but far too dirty & cold to swim in.
The forest is enchantingly beautiful, the rocks are covered in green moss & tiny ferns. Itsy bitsy bugs swarm in groups of say, 30, in the rays of sun that beam through the thick canopy. And the birds sing you a never ending melody. Then suddenly a break in the forest, heat brushes your face, a vastness fills your eyes & you marvel at the beauty.
Then you proced once more into the forest & march on to the goal; Kondalilla Falls. Initially you only get to see the first part of the falls, a small one that falls into a large swimming hole. Its quite beautiful & would be a nice swim, though i gave it a miss this time. Just remember if you ever do, preferably don't use sunscreen (or any chemicals for that matter), as it pollutes the water. The pool trickes off to cascade down rocks, till it reaches the end and plumets the main height. You can go out near the edge, the view is fantastic, but there is a saftey wire you need to stay behind. (The waterfall is pictured at the top of this article)
Then you can continue on to do the rest of the walk, which takes you down to the base of the falls. Its very beautiful, we even came across another goanna, which took up a tree. And spotted a few little forest birds. There was also a large strangler fig, amung my top half dozen, towering over the forest. Not to mention the bunya pines that also towered above the canopy, visible from the top of the falls.
Unfortunatly we never made it to the bottom of the falls, as the track was closed about 60% of the way along, it would have been nice if they had stated that at the start, but we just got to enjoy the first half again. Returning to the start we spotted a kookaburra perched in a tree nearby, he also watched us, but noticed we didn't have food & soon lost interest. So we headed back home, and enjoyed looking over all the photos we had made that day.
