I first saw images of the Natural Bridge a few months ago. But, Australia is a HUGE country, and so often the places I see images of and want to visit involve a plane flight. When I learned that Natural Bridge is a little over an hour south west of Brisbane, I quickly put it on our list of places to visit.
The last 30 km of the drive was absolutely incredible. As we drove further into the hinterland, the landscape got more and more lush. We drove through a narrow valley with high scenic rims on either side of us. The farm houses along that 30km stretch of road, have the most amazing views of rocky cliffs intermingled with a lush rain forest canopy, which is said to be part of the remnants of a huge ancient volcano. There was no safe place to pull over and take a picture on the narrow country road, so I borrowed this picture from tim.bellette.net
The Natural Bridge hiking track took us through the lush forest...
across Cave Creek ...
and into the arched cave...
to witness the waterfall...
plunging from above.
Even though it took us just over an hour to drive there, and the hike itself was fairly short, it was well worth it. Like I mentioned before, driving through and seeing the beauty of the hinterland was breathtaking. As I write this, I'm reminded of the famous quote by Greg Anderson: "Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.”
**To see the full gallery of photos from our Natural Bridge Hike click on the title of this blog entry above.
