The destination this weekend was a very small mountain in the Glasshouse Mountains, one of the people coming wasn’t keen on walks that are too long. Mount Ngungun is the perfect alternative, it is quite low and an easy walk but has a fantastic view from the top.
We had attempted to go around a year ago but the track was closed for maintenance, with anticipation of a nicely constructed new track we met with Matt and Tomomi at the carpark ready to go up.
It isn’t obvious what was changed on the track, it all looks like an original one, probably cut into the mountain twenty or thirty years ago – it would have been hard work!
The path is very straightforward and we were at the huge altitude of 253m in about 45 minutes, I said it was small! The round trip is only 2.72 km but the rewards are fantastic. This mountain has a nice set of easily accessible cliffs to climb, as a result there were lots of people with ropes and rack of climbing gear also going up.
From the top the view is spectacular, directly over the various granite plugs that are the Glass House mountains. The most prominent are Coonowrin (Crookneck), with it’s weird bent top, and the large bulk of Beerwah on the side. Looking East is a great view across Bribie Island to the Pacific.
We were doing this hike in October, which is perfect, it gets very hot in summer and there were lots of flowers already out. It must have also been perfect for butterfly’s – for some reason there were thousand of them flying around us!
The Glass House Mountains were originally named by Captain Cook, who thought they looked like Glasshouses in England . As I was taught in school, Cook was the first European to ‘discover’ Australia in 1770, ignoring the Aboriginals who have been here for around 20-30000 years…
In Aboriginal mythology Tibrogargan, the Father, angrily had hit Coonowrin crooking his neck. Tibrogargan had asked Coonowrin to help the pregnant Beerwah, the Mother, to assist Beerwah to safety from an oncoming flood. Coonowrin ran away instead. The full story is much more involved and is interesting https://visitsunshinecoasthinterland.com.au/things-to-do/glass-house-mountains-aboriginal-legend/
After we had finished, we still had plenty of time, not too far away is a small town Kenilworth which has been making a good name for itself as part of the Sunshine Coast food trail… The ice cream and cheese are delicious!
This is a great walk to take ‘non-walkers’ on, it is only an hour or so from Brisbane and I can’t think of any other with as much bang for your buck.
The Map
Mount Ngungun
