Glass House Mountains (18 - 20 April)

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We travelled north through Brisbane and stopped for lunch at Caboolture. We thought we might stay somewhere up around Maleny, but in the end we found a relatively cheap caravan park near the Glass House Mountains, so named by Captain Cook in 1770 because of their resemblance to glass manufacturing houses back in England. It was called the Glass House Mountains Tourist Village and located on the now named Steve Irwin Highway about 10km south of Australia Zoo. On the way to the caravan park, we stopped off at the Glass House Mountains Lookout which gave great views of these interesting 25 million year old volcanic peaks.

On Sunday we drove up to Maleny, stopping briefly at Mary Cairncross Park which had great views of the Glass House Mountains from the north. In Maleny we wandered around the small Sunday markets held in the Community Hall and then drove to nearby Gardner's Falls. After a brief look at the falls, we stopped off at the Maleny Boutique Cheese factory and purchased another supply of tasty cheeses. We then drove through Montville, a lovely small town which resembles a European hamlet. We stopped for lunch at Kondalilla Falls National Park and afterwards walked the 4.7km Kondalilla Falls circuit. Then it was back to the caravan park.

On Monday we did very little apart from Annelies and Thomas catching up on some school work and their journals, while Mark and Alex investigated making a trip to Fraser Island. We initially thought that we might spend a few more days camping inland around Conondale National Park as we presumed that Fraser Island might still be very crowded - although Qld school holidays were now over, it was still NSW school holidays and we thought a lot of people from northern NSW in particular would be camping there. However, we were informed by Qld Parks & Wildlife Service that there were plenty of camper trailer sites available at Central Station, which was where we planned to base ourselves. So on Tuesday we left Glass House Mountains Tourist Village and headed for Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island.

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