Spent yesterday and today in the area around the Glasshouse Mountains and the Blackall Range and hope to go back because there are more walks to do and things to see.
Yesterday we went to Eumundi Market. Seemingly it's the biggest market in the southern hemisphere. It certainly is the biggest market I have been to and the best. It has loads of local, high quality crafts and Jim nearly had multiple heart attacks every time I stopped to admire art work, jewellery, sculpture etc. Despite his forbidding expressions I managed to relieve some of the stall holders of some of their wares. I even persuaded him to get me an early Christmas present! On our way home we got a flavour of the Glasshouse Mountains so we had to go back today.
The Glasshouse Mountains, eroded volcanic plugs, got their name from Captain Cook who first saw them in 1770 and was reminded of glasshouses - they don't look remotely like glasshouses to me! I much prefer the aboriginal legend from the Guppi Guppi people about the mountains. Tibrogargan, the father, and Beerwah, the mother, had many children of whom Coonowrin was the eldest. One day Tibrogargan noticed that the seas were rising. He called out to Coonowrin to help gather the other children for his mother, who was pregnant - this is the cause of her huge size. Coonowrin ran away in fear of of the rising water saying that Beerwah was big enough to look after herself - he was not aware that she was pregnant. This angered Tibrogargan so much that he struck his son such a blow that it dislocated his neck. Tibrogargan was so furious with his eldest son that he has turned his back and looks out to sea - when you look at the mountain from the front you can actually see the shape of eyes. When you look at Coonowrin it does look like a crooked neck. And Beerwah is huge - it takes a long time to give birth to a mountain! We also walked to and admired many of Beerwah's other children. The twins, I think are fraternal as they are not identical.
The macadamia industry is very important in this area but unfortunately we missed the nut fest last weekend - obviously it was short two nuts!
Then we continued on to the Blackall Range and the towns in the area. This area is even more beautiful as it has wonderful views from the mountains right down as far as the coast. The countryside here is surprisingly like Ireland. We stopped in Maleny, a lovely rural town with more crafts - and more heart spasms for Jim! Then we went on to Montville, a quaint mountain town with great restaurants - so we had to eat! Between the walks and the window shopping it got too late to do all the things I wanted to do so hopefully we will go back to the area. Other travellers would probably be more attracted to the water sports of the Sunshine coast but we love the rural areas.
We have had some useful learning over the two days. While Jim was frantically trying to stop me spending money our car was being issued with a parking fine - we seem to gather them on all of our holidays! Anyway, there is nothing like a 30 dollar fine to ensure that we learn the rules of parking. 1P means 1 hour, 2P 2 and so on. We did 4P in a 1P zone! Today we had a near miss - we parked in a 2P place but we noticed that all the cars had been reversed in. Fortunately Jim was warned a bit later by a kind woman when he went back to get something from the car - he would be finedfor parking the wrong way round! I reckoned we had saved 30 dollars so proceeded to find ways of spending it!
Tomorrow - bushwalking or... back to the Blackall range and walk to a few waterfalls which should be good as there has been a lot of rain before we came.
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