A PLACE with a name like Mt Tamborine should not be able to scare the bejesus out of you - but that was exactly what happened when Gemma and I stayed there in the second half of our Gold Coast excursion.
We tackled a ropes course at a centre called Adventure Parc, including some challenges 26m above the ground. There were three courses of ascending difficulty, from green through red to black.
It was only when we got to the black course that things became really hard, especially as we had been going for two hours by then.
One of the last ones, where you were hanging by stirrups a scary height above the ground, had Andy whimpering with fear even though he had actually reached the other side.
Gemma was the master of the course and put him straight again.
Safely back on the ground, we then found out more about the strange phenomenon of Christmas in July.
The reason of this bizarre celebration is that July in Australia is winter, and the mountains are wreathed in fog (not snow though, it doesn't get that cold). Many of the hotels have decorations and the restaurants serve up Christmas dinners, possibly at exhorbitant prices (in an effort to make the experience as real as possible, of course).
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WE then headed to a health retreat called Gwinganna, in an adjacent valley, and found five days of genuine calm among our hectic lives.
The retreat was not just bathrobes and Chamomile tea, as Andy had feared, but involved Tai Chi at dawn, a morning walk before breakfast, and then more activities between breakfast and lunch.
These activities could be anything from a yoga class or stretching to boxing, stick fighting or water polo.
And the food was organic, designed by dietitians - and still yummy.
Wow - we were in heaven. Five days was just not long enough. How about a lifetime??
.....
The final part of our trip was relaxed but pleasant, driving down to Sanctuary Cove and staying at the Hyatt, and taking walks through the manicured gardens and past Venetian-style waterfalls and fountains.
We had dinner at a restaurant which looked like the inside of an English country manor, with wood-fired oven and wooden panelling on the walls, yet condensation on the windows as the air-con was cranked right up.
Finally, we drove back up to the spiky peaks of the Glasshouse Mountains, which we had passed on the way down on the train.
We stayed in an eco-lodge with just a fan blowing on us, and the humidity going through the roof. It felt just like Townsville in summer, but not much like home.
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