Roland’s place just happens to be off the main road to Mt Tamborine, a favourite destination for Brisbanites and visitors alike, so we didn’t have to think too long about where to go yesterday… and it was wonderful! Okay, the crazy antique shop and the famous ice-cream shop were closed but that wasn’t enough to dampen our enthusiasm. Our daughter Susannah and her boyfriend Darren had never experienced a rain forest before and their excitement was almost palpable, making it an even greater pleasure for Chris and me.

A little way along the path to Curtis Falls we were greeted by the sight of a friendly kookaburra conveniently perched on a branch in front of us; he seemed to enjoy the adulation and the clicks from our cameras. The forest rang with the sometimes deafening sound of the crickets (at least we assumed they were crickets – or were they frogs?), and when they took a breather we could hear the other animals in the forest, especially the birds. A bush turkey followed us down the track, then ran away when we tried to take photographs. A bearded dragon (like we used to have at Gumdale when we were children) caught the eye of a Japanese couple who pointed him out to us and we all marvelled in silence until a crackle of leaf underfoot sent him into the undergrowth.

Deep and deeper into the forest, and down and down, the path ended at a lagoon bathed in sunlight because of the gap in the trees, and the waterfall glistened in the light…

Homeward bound, and only a few miles down the mountain, we stopped at another of my old haunts, Cedar Creek Falls. There are treasured photographs of little Jim (my son) and I going down the natural water slide in the rocks; in those days it was quite a hard trek down a rough dirt track to the pools at the bottom of the falls. Nowadays there is a nice car park, a picnic area and a modern metalled path with handrails.

This time we were met by a gigantic goanna near the car park; like the kookaburra earlier, he had no fear of us and he allowed us to admire him and take photos for a while… until he became bored and wandered off into the long grass.

Some French lads (I discovered later) impressed the bikini-clad beauties sunbathing on the rocks around the pool by jumping from as high a point as they dared… just as my brother Henry had done when he was young and sporting (and a stone or two lighter). And when a large group of school children came along, and the pool was a hive of activity, the young men and the bathing belles quietly packed up and left the kids to it. And they queued up on the same rock where Jim and I had waited our turns to slide down into the pool of cool mountain water…