Glass House Mountains

4th November 

I have rented a little camper van for a week,  to explore a bit more & visit some National Parks. 

I had a bit of fun & games - the first rental vehicle, a Subaru Outback, south of Brisbane (which is why I had headed back down to Brisbane) got cancelled by the owner, so I had to pick another camper. This is through a site called Camplify where you can rent other people's vans and vehicles.

So I had to go back up to the sunshine coast to Marcoola to pick this little one up

I had to stay in an air bnb in Maroochydore the night before, which was nice - a room in an apartment with a pool

Then next day, I picked up the camper - its Automatic, so it felt weird at first but soon got the hang, although, typically, it started raining when I picked it up, so I visited Coles for a shop.

The owner, a lady from Brazil, asked me to water her plant.....of all things

A) who has a plant in a van!?

B) I'm possibly the worst, non green fingered plant killer this century!!

......it doesn't bode well......

It's velcro'd down btw............

Thankfully the rain stopped & I climbed Mount Coolum......easy path up

Saw my first Kookaburra in the tress......my pic was useless so this is an Internet one:

I then drove thorough the glass house mountains

These are a set of mountains that were formed when the continent was shifting, and caused the magma to get pushed up through week spots in the earth to form magma plugs. 

They got named by Captain James Cook, when he saw them they reminded him of the conical chimneys of the glass-making furnaces..........but I don't know.........I don't think that does them justice.......and neither do my pictures sadly.

The Aboriginal people have their own names and these mountains and land are extremely sacred to them. They never climb them :

One of the biggest and most impressive is Mount Beerwah

 

After this I spent my first night at Cruice Park rest stop - which was free and had toilets.

Australia is Pretty cool as it has lots of free camp grounds & rest stops 

Found some light but apt reading in the van:

I watched the sunrise next morning out the back window of the van.....& thought, wow, this IS how I want to live!!