Glasshouse Mountains

Bill Bryson described the "Big Things" phenomenon in his Australia book, so we were excited to add the Giant Pineapple to our list of giant objects to see.  This one had a bonus in that you can climb up to the top from the inside!  Very cool.

View of the pineapple plantation from the top of the Giant Pineapple:

Moving right along... to the Glasshouse Mountains for a fun day of hiking and trail running.  The playground at the visitor center even had tiny models of the mountains for the kids to play on (those dark humps in between the actual fun stuff).  Kind of the opposite of the "Big Things" motif:

At our first trailhead - a MTY DUK!

View of Mount Tibrogargan from our trail heading up Mount Ngungun - love the "pop up" mountain topography:

The trail up past a small cave:

View of the top of Mount Ngungun, with Mounts Beerwah and Coonowrin in the distance:

Mount Coonowrin (the lighter gray) is quite striking, as is Mount Beerwah behind it:

Checking out the land to the south:

It's just a little hike, jeans seem appropriate:

From the Glasshouse Mountains Lookout, a view of Mount Tibrogargan.  Our next run was a circumnavigation of this mountain on an excellent trail through the woods:

View from the top of Mount Beerburrum - it was great fun see these peaks from various vantage points, exploring the trails, and enjoying the nice weather.

The climb up to the top of Mount Beerburrum was a doozy!  Short but extremely steep.  And it was PAVED - probably the steepest paved trail we've ever encountered.  It's hard to get a good perspective on steepness (it always seems looking at the pictures later that we were just being wimps) so I didn't even try, just focused on breathing...

The view from the top was worth it, especially since we could climb partway up the tower:

There is a bit of solar here and there in Australia - and a lot of opportunity for more... hmm... (pondering our future work sites)

I didn't take any photos, but we stopped at the Abbey Museum and spent a couple hours studying the interesting displays that detailed a wide range of history in a very compact way.  Quite nice.

We finally made it to an island off the coast of Australia!  We had seen (and heard about) so many neat islands and places to vacation but didn't make the time/effort to get there.  You can drive to Bribie Island, and it has a couple caravan parks, so that's where we went.  Welcome to our first Australian island.

View of the ocean and a large container ship:

Jucy at the beach:

Almost to the southern end of Queensland!

Airshow and Noosa Head

During the short drive from Tin Can Bay toward Noosa, we noticed there was an airshow happening and John suggested that we check it out.  I got to feed a dolphin today, everything else will just be gravy  :)  So definitely, let's see the airplanes.

There were lots of small models on display, and perhaps John was imagining what it would take to fly one:

Some really neat aircraft (and no, I know nothing about planes, so I can't explain what we were looking at, but it was fun to consider what it would be like to go up in the sky in one):

What?

Ah, right, the wing holder for a glider:

There were a few other types of transportation on display, including some older models of motorcycles:

Fun model, and we saw it later getting ready to fly:

Adorable little Mini:

A formation of planes (including 2 biplanes) buzzing the runway:

Long-EZ, one of the original planes to test flying on high fuel efficiency:

For some reason I seem to think this is more my speed, even though I have very little experience flying in one:

Love the Ultralight concept:

We spent the rest of the day roaming around the trails at Noosa Head, starting from the Sunshine Beach side:

Heading along the dunes toward the Noosa hills:

I like how the lighting came out here:

Not sure what this dirt ball is doing on this tree, maybe related to termites?

Another shot from the same angle, this one with more interesting lighting and colors:

Big waves along the rocks in Alexandria Bay:

Trying to capture the sight and sound of the waves - not sure you can see, but there are a couple folks surfing in the background:



An eggplant on the beach??

Sea birds on the rocks, I think they are cormorants:

Rocky shoreline as I made my way around the "head" of Noosa Head:

It really was a good day to have a camera for the scenery shots:

Specks of surfers waiting on the waves:

Another fun day in Australia!

All kinds of animals - plus a distillery

Moving down the eastern Australian coast!  We decided we had time for a detour over to Eungella National Park, and it was an excellent choice.  The scenery on the drive up (to the end of a valley and then switchbacking up to the rim) was lovely.  The woods were beautiful.  The trails were great fun to run on.

And there were platypi platypuses!  We got an even better look this time, the lighting was better, and their pool was right at the trail.  We used our training from our first platypus experience - talk in a low voice so they know you aren't a predator, don't point when you see one, and move slowly.

Hello Mrs. Platypus, so great to see you!

Hanging out on the surface, resting from the underwater experience:

And maybe doing a little sunning:

I so adore the butt wiggle at the end of this short video that I figured out how to embed it so you can watch it easier - share the cuteness!

An embedded platypus, how about that!  Let me know if this doesn't work for anyone, it's my first embedding in this blog (surely I should have thought of it long ago, this is true).

Further along the creek - a turtle!  Looks like lots of greenery to eat for any creature so inclined:

Back down along the coast, another cane train crossing.  Maui has (or soon to be "had") giant cane trucks that are truly impressive.  The little trains are a fun alternate way to move sugar cane around:

I had been hoping to make it to the town of Bundaberg at the right time of day for a distillery tour; we missed a rum place on Kaua'i and the vineyards near Adelaide, but happily we made it to Bundaberg!

A fitting "giant object" outside the distillery:

"Huzzah!" - indicative of the can-do spirit of the people who work here.  The tour described a massive flood in town and how the company did a lot of things to help the community after it happened.

The tour was fun, I learned more about rum (and there is always more to learn  :) ), and the tastings included mixers with the Bundaberg ginger beer soda from another local beverage company.  A most excellent time, and a purchase to share with my cousin in Sydney - when we eventually get back there (I tried not to push out our return too much, but we kept finding fun things to see in Queenland!)

Checking out a pandanus/hala tree along the coast on another beautiful day (we got SO lucky with the weather for most of the trip, sometimes arriving a week after a big rain, things like that, we'll take it!):

Tin Can Bay!  Much of my planning involved getting here at the right time (early a.m.) so we could maybe hopefully feed the dolphins!

These are a couple wild humpback dolphins that arrive most every morning, as members of their pod have been doing for many years ever since the community assisted an injured/beached dolphin.  The dolphin returned to health and then returned to the town for a visit.  The feeding is highly regulated and the people who monitor it seem very grateful that this is part of their job, as I would be!

And they are back this morning, hello!  These might be Mystique (alpha male) and Patch (female) but I can't recall for certain as it has been a few weeks since we actually had this amazing experience:

The first few people in the water, as the guides talk about the history and regulations around the dolphin feeding:

In the water (braving cold feet) for a closer encounter:

A fish we purchased to feed to a dolphin:

How cool!  I just loved this so much.

The guide handing out the leftover fish - they have a certain amount they are allowed to feed the two dolphins, and any fish that aren't purchased are fed to them at the end:

And now - an embedded dolphin!


Thank you, beautiful animal!

I should figure out how to animate this series of photos that John took, but I've hit my max "video learning" for one day.  So just scroll and imagine that the photos are in a flip book:

Funny bird!