Travelling the Sunshine Coast Hinterland

We have been missing out on summer for almost a year now, since we moved to Australia at the beginning of the European summer into the coldest Melbourne winter.

Having two kids and a German husband it might have been the obvious choice  to drive directly to the beach from Brisbane and stay at the beach, we did not do this.

Oh well, as soon as we picked up our camper we did drive directly to the beach and dug holes in the sand, but we decided to drive to the Hinterland behind the endless coastline.

The Glass House Mountains

Driving up North one of the first things that stroke us were a couple peaks that are standing almost alone in the landscape. A very surreal sight:

Having seen this our first destination was clear: we have to get closer to these peaks and find out more about them. So from Bribie Island we drove to the Glass House Mountains, afterwards to Maleny and Montville and we ended the trip in Mooloolaba on the coast (must have been named by a very drunk person):

The three highest peaks of the Glass House Mountains were volcanoes 25 million years ago, the others are Magma cooled in the surface. For this view we had to climb on a viewing platform on top of a hill.

North of the Glass House Mountains there are vista roads on top of the mountains. Scenic drives with lots of stops at the lookout points. But of course there are also many hiking trails. The only part which I liked a bit less in this area is that the walkways are very civilised, which takes a bit of the adventure out for me. It was perfect for this trip though since we only had four days.

Hiking in Kondalilla National Park

One of the hikes that we did was the Kondalilla Falls circuit, a 4.7 km circular hike.

Things that you do not want to find out

‘Lookout for the leaves of the Giant Stinging Tree’ is what one of the tourist brochures mentions. ‘When the heart shaped leaves are touched they can cause pain that will last for weeks.’ Ok, not deadly, but it does not sound very appealing either. I guess we will avoid any heart shaped leave from now on.

We saw more wildlife on our trip and are aware that there are many kinds of dangerous animals in Australia. But unaware that there is also danger from plants (that you do not even eat)!

Hiking the Gardners Falls

Although hiking might be a bit over rated with 400 meters walkway from the car park along the Obi Obi Creek to the Falls. The falls easily make up for it though. The rock pool is a little piece of paradise. You can walk the shallow parts or take a three meter jump in the cold rock pool, which Oliver and Kai did. Unfortunately, just as I was about to think about considering to take the jump as well, a tropical rain started poring down.