Monday, September 06, 2010

the hinterland

the hinterland: also know as the interior, the mountains, inland, etc. the hinterland in australia refers to the non-coastal area west of brisbane and the sunshine and gold coasts. we spent 3 days in the hinterland.

the first day involved an hour drive or so to mount glorious. i mean really, with a name like that how would you not go visit? the drive out of brisbane was fairly easy and rather scenic- winding through "mountain" roads, seeing much lusher forests then we have in WA and greener greens too! the rolling landscape of the hinterland allows for some pretty awesome views as you drive. arriving at mount glorious, we were somewhat uhm, disappointed. there wasn't really any hiking to be done on site and only a picnic area to hang out in- one with great views mind you. so we quickly hoped back into the car and found a random trail a few kms down the way. the walk was nice but nothing extraordinary. we then hoped back into the car and headed to mount nebo (neb-oh? neb-ou? knee-boh?. no idea). again, nice views and a nice short hike. we headed back to jaime's for the night.

the next day we grabbed our overnight bags and drove out to the glass house mountains. i'd been told they were pretty amazing and definitely worth seeing. the drive was also just over an hour from brisbane and we passed the famous "australia zoo", run by the irwin family (of crocodile hunter fame...). the mountains come as a surprise because the drive is rather flat. out of the corner of your eye you see a large rock-like structure jutting out of the surrounding farm-land.

apparently the glass-house mountains are over 25 million years old and are the remnants of large volcanic mountain-type things. the soft sandstone surrounding them have eroded over time and left these popping up in the landscape.

jaime and i decided to try some hikes around them- we managed to hike around the base of one of them (a short 3km hike). i was rather excited at the thought of running into some koalas- there were signs saying to look out for them, up high. i kept stopping to look but alas, none sighted. we had hoped to clamber to the top of the first stop but the sign suggested that you might need some light rappelling gear and a knowledge of australian rock formations (neither of which we had). we got into the car and eventually made our way to a few other of the mountains.

in true australian form, the visitor centre had minimal info about the walks and at no point did they mention that the 2 hikes we were most interested in doing were in fact, unsafe due to rockfalls. so after driving around and looking for entrances to random locations (which we did successfully but only after a surprisingly long time!) we drove up to a sign saying "no hiking". thanks for nothing visitors centre. thanks for nothing. as we headed out to maleny, the quaint village we'd be staying in for the night, we did see 2 wallabies by the side of the road. it was almost worth the driving. almost.

maleny is exactly what you expect a small mountain-town to be. sort of like merrickville actually. we settled into our lovely hotel which had amazing views of the rolling hills and valleys, watched the sunset from our deck before heading into town for some dinner.

the next day we managed to find not one, but 2 nice hikes through the rainforest, which were part of the "great walks of the sunshine coast hinterland". the baroon pocket dam was our first stop- the walks here were much nicer. very rainforesty and lush. we heard the most amazing bird (i'm trying to post it's sound on video...). we then scooted over to mapleton falls for one last hike before stopping for a snack, then hitting the coast for the drive back to brisbane.



i'm looking forward to exploring the rest of the hinterland next year!
xo

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