If you were to travel as the crow flies, that is in a more or less straight line in a nor nor easterly direction from Brisbane for about 83 kilometres and stayed below an altitude of of 276 metres you would flap, and I presume you are flapping quite hard at this point, right into Beerburrum Mountain. This edifice is one of the many volcanic plugs that make up the spectacular Glasshouse mountains, poking out of the ground like an angry statement.
Capt. Cook that old all discovering, all mapping, cartographer and all round wonderful incredible human being first chartered the glasshouse mountains in 1770. I say first chartered rather than discovered the mountains because the original inhabitants the Kalkadoon people who didn’t write stuff down, although they certainly knew the area well enough having lived in there for eons.
The next European with the seagoing explorer’s nature to make a fuss was the adventurous Lt. Matthew Flinders who anchored his vessel, the sloop Norfolk in nearby Pumice stone Passage and travelled through the bushland to Beerburrum Mountain whereupon he scaled its heights, and no doubt marveled as we do today at the panoramic spread out before him like a oil painting on a table.
Of course before both Cook or Flinders et al can lay claim to the discovery of the Glasshouse mountains the naming of which by the way was from their resemblance to the glass furnaces Cook knew as a child in Yorkshire. They are in fact shaped like a Chinese temple Bell as well but maybe the erstwhile Mr Cook had not seen one of those yet. The real beginnings of the Glasshouse Mountains lies with the dream time of the Kalkadoon people.
This is one of the truly wonderful stories of our indigenous people. The peaks that make up the Glasshouse mountains are called Coonowrin , Beerburrum, the Tunbubudla twins, Coochin, Ngungun, Tibberoowuccum, Miketeebumulgrai and Elimbah. Now let us consider these mountains as children with Coonowin being the eldest. If these are the children then there must be parents, and so there was, the mother was Beerwah and father was Tibrogargan and this fairly large family lived on the gentle coastal plains.
One day as Tibrogargan was staring out to sea, he notices the sea was rising up against the land, he knew his family were in great danger and hurried to gather up his brood to flee to the higher ground inland to safety.
Now as was usual and even considering the number of children Beerwah had birthed, Beerwah was pregnant. With disaster looming Tibrogargan told Coonowin the eldest of the children to help Beerwah to safety, but Coonowin put himself first and fled leaving the pregnant Beewah to fend for herself.
As we can see today all the brood survived. Tiborgargan was furious at his eldest son for deserting his mother in the time of need and struck Coonowin a mighty blow which if you look at the peak and with a little imagination you can see where his neck might be twisted a feature which no doubt caused great pain to the mountain feature.
When Tiborgargan calmed down a little he asked his eldest son why he did not help his mother and was told a little lamely that he didn’t know she was pregnant and after all she was bigger than he and as such could look after herself.
This appalling attitude of a son to his mother made the whole family cry in shame and is the real cause of the many streams and rivulets running from the mountains to the sea.
Tiborgargan to this day faces away from his son and has never turned his face toward him since. Incidentally Beerwah is still pregnant mountains have a very very long gestation period.
Just as an aside there are amazing brooks that spring seemingly from nowhere in the most unlikely, elevated places way up high on a the volcanic plugs.
At the foot of Beerwah is the famous Australian Zoo, founded by Steve Irwin or more correctly his father Robert though from a very early age it was apparent Steve was destined for the fame and remarkable achievements this young man made whilst he graced our planet.
Australia Zoo is a particularly family friendly place geared around entertainment as much as conservation but this combination has been very successful and no doubt will remain so.
The whole area around the Glasshouse Mountains is well serviced by many walking paths and hiking trails although I have not had the pleasure of wandering around and taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of the terrain. If like me you are a more sedentary person take some time to explore the many wonderful local byways like Twin View road.
I love to take a couple of hours meandering around these small roads often to nowhere. The trick is not to expect to get somewhere specific. I use this technique now that I am retired, and to go from place to place simply for the pleasure of going, I find it far outweighs the pleasures or pains of actually doing whatever you planned to do when you got there.
Mind you I often find the scooter going forward into areas and byroads that are necessarily wise to continue with along. As you may remember I ride a motor scooter, quite a big one actually more like a bike really. I don’t fancy trying to push my wonderful scoot miles and doubt that I could.
The imagined vision of me staggering from a leafy bush trail with an injured motor scooter looking for a helpful mechanically talented person seems to bring out a more cautious Roger.
Having painted this picture for you don’t let that stop you from enjoying the great outdoors like the wonderful glasshouse mountains.
To get there I used my faboulous Motor Scooter from OZ Scooters.
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