Nature Photo Contest Week #8 - MOUNTAINS MONDAY
This is my entry into the Mountains Monday Nature Photo Contest run by @shadalene.
I don't usually play along on a Monday. Something I have learnt while participating in #naturephotocontest is that Australia is quite flat to the rest of the world. Our mountains here seem somewhat non-existent to what is on offer from the rest of the world... however, I found a photo, lol. : )
It's not the greatest photo but it means a lot to me... a few years back we holidayed at Stanthorpe in QLD, Australia. It's a fairly small rural town well known for growing apples and it's amazing granite rock landscape! It is known as the Granite Belt region and sits 811m above sea level making it rather cool and crisp up there. While we were there we decided to climb what is known as The Pyramid at Girraween National Park. Beautiful, beautiful place.
The walk starts out easy but soon the difficulty level increases. Here's the elevation profile to give you an idea.
On the 2nd half of the climb, you're ascending of the exposed rock face and it is very steep. It was just us doing the climb either, we also had our 3 children with us! So this is the view from the top looking out at Balancing Rock, the Second Pyramid with other views looking over Girraween National Park. It was pretty special, a great achievement and an amazing view over some very impressive granite rock formations!
Love it . Have not been there since I was 17 ! Can just make out the Sphinx in the distance. Would love to go back.
Yes I'd like to do it again before my knees give out on me... this was the only walk we did up there, I wouldn't mind doing a few of the others also. I don't know what the Sphinx is, I'll have to look that one up.
Looks like you can just see the spinx in your shot.
http://www.rymich.com/girraween/index.php?page=gi_sphinx§ion=tracks&sub=sphinx
Oh yes, okay... I know this as balancing rock. Yes that little stunner is in my shot : )