CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

March 23, 2023 — I made it to the Glass House Mountains! Neither Antonia nor Aimee was able to join me but I got up, dressed, and had breakfast, then caught the train just after nine and settled in for the hour and a half journey north.

When I got off the train at the Glass House Mountains station, there were signs posted immediately showing where you could got to see the Glass House Mountains. The map showed a lookout from the summit of Mount Ngungun, rated at a moderate level of difficulty, and I figured it was as good a place to start as any, although I didn’t know what kind of lookout it would offer (looking at Google Maps the night before, I thought it might be leading to a basic lookout — it wasn’t). I followed the path through town and to the trailhead.

This hike was perfect. It took me a solid half hour to reach the trailhead and another solid half hour to climb to the summit. The views from the top were absolutely stunning. When I was on the ground, I thought the mountains looked like an inspiration for the floating mountains in the movie Avatar. They really are rather otherworldly, in an otherwise flat expanse.

I hiked down eventually, and I was more than happy to move on; I didn’t have any desire to scale the other mountains. (Mostly because the others were kind of far away and looked like you would need rock climbing equipment to tackle them.)

I made it to the station just after noon and hoped to head to the Australia Zoo twenty minutes up the line. I caught the train just in time and took it to Beerwah, where they announced that anyone heading to the Australia Zoo could get the courtesy shuttle at that stop. I got off there instead of listening to Google Maps, which wanted me to wait one more stop.

It was a good decision.

I got the shuttle right outside the station, bought a ticket online, and made it inside the zoo with enough time to see the Wildlife Warriors show, which was amazing.

I walked around the zoo and saw loads of other animals, too, including the Tasmanian Devil! I didn’t get a chance to go to the Tasmania Devil Unzoo in Hobart because of bus timetables and while we were on the tour through Tasmania, I didn’t really want to spend the money for admission to the wildlife sanctuary and not have a ton of time to spend there. I made up for that today!

I headed back to Brisbane on the train around four p.m. and made it back to the hostel by six. I picked up a bag of chips and a Coke from the store, then got into my room for my swimsuit. I took a quick dip, which felt absolutely wonderful after being in the heat all day, then put my pyjamas on and made dinner.

After dinner, I headed back to the room and chatted with a couple of the girls in my room for a while. Then, I called home, took a couple nighttime pills since my cough was a bit worse than the day before, and went to sleep (eventually).

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