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Hike Up Mount Beerwah, Glass House Mountains National Park

On Saturday James (Emma's "True Blue" boyfriend) took Emma and I up one of his favourite mountains, Mount Beerwah (Beer-waaaaa). Mount Beerwah stands at 556m above sea level and is the tallest of the Glass House Mountains. (See the Wikipedia Article, or visit the Glass House Mountain National Park Website) Below is a picture of Mount Beerwah and I have indicated the route in red. You start from the car park and take a gentle stroll up to the base of a rock slab with goes the front of mountain, until the base of some cliffs. To get some idea, the next picture is of Emma and James climbing the rock slab below where I was. All i could think off during this hike was "Nick would love this!!!" and "Shannon would hate it....". Emma struggled up, helped along by James, who did an excellent job!

Once you reach the cliffs, its a very gentle walk to the top! The views are amazing and because its the tallest spot for miles around you can see everything, from Brisbane in the South, to Noosa in the North and of course all the other Glass House Mountains. Below is a 180 deg stitched photo I took of the view from the North (on the left) to the South (on the right). I've also indicated the other Glass House Mountains on the photo.

The way down was a little tricky and we just took it slowly. On getting to the bottom, we saw an ambulance crew taking away a guy who broke his ankle coming down too fast and bum sliding out of control to the bottom. We all had a great day! And thanks again to James for taking us up... To see some more photo, see my Facebook Gallery

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News from Down Under......

Hello again everyone...

Here's the news from sunny Brisbane! For the last week I have been running around with family and friends on this side of the pond doing the various tourist things that there is to do in the part of the world... Click the hyperlinks (highlighted for those who are tech challenged) to find out more about these places and to save me boring those you don't care:

We went to Dreamworld - a theme park on the Gold Coast

We went for a day to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. We met up with my cousins Dave and Fiona and had a long walk around the Noosa Heads and through the town... What a beautiful place

We also went to Mooloolaba and Montville for another day trip and also popped in at Ettamogah Pub which is Australia's most famous pub mate...

We also went to the boarder between Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW). There are two towns which meet at the boarder, Coolangatta and Tweed Heads otherwise know as the twin towns. The funny thing is that during the summer NSW has daylight savings, the result being that during summer, the time on the one side of some streets is an hour behind the time of the other side of the street... It's histerical and I am assured at most times farcical.

Other thing is that AUS has warm water (avg of 25 degs) year round, so I have been doing some swimming in the sea here. Also, something interesting to note is that the sand is so clean, is squeeks when you walk on it. I can assure you that this is very off putting.

To end off, I will tell you about the interesting sport of Rugby Leage (NRL) which is the alternative to Rugby Union. It's a fast game, but looks a lot sillier if you don't understand the details. Basically each team gets 5 chances to use the ball. Every time a player is tackled, the opposing team retreats 10m and they restart (quickly mind you)... the object is to gain as much ground as possible with in the 6 phases, or achieve a break through to score a try. a try is 4 points, a coversion 2 and a drop goal 1. You cannot tie a match. If you cannot use the ball in 6 phases, then its a turn over and the opposing team has a go. there is no mauling or rucking and the scrum is uncontested, as well as no line out... pentalies are similar to rugby union.... Its very silly to watch and the players are much faster and athletic than union. All in all, I don't really get it and don't really see the point, but I went with my Dad to watch a match and enjoyed hanging out with my old man! :P

Cheers for now

Ryan