I request breakfast at 07:30, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, interestingly the eggs were poached in shallow water so looked like fried eggs except without the fat, I will try the method myself. After a brief chat I bid the hosts farewell and drive to the centre of Maleny for supplies, I had a mountain to climb.
Mount Ngungun is the sixth tallest of the Glass House Mountains at 253 m. There are others which look more spectacular but these cannot be climbed or, as was the case on the day were closed due to the bad weather. I parked up at the start of the trail, some people were just setting out on the trail, they sprayed themselves. I figured it was mosquito repellent. Finished my coffee and started up the path only to be bitten twice by mosquitoes. I turned back drive into town and bought some spray.
Suitably kitted out I returned sprayed myself then just the path again. It was quite humid in the forest at the base of the climb until most of the way up. The sun being out contributed somewhat. The path is relatively short but the net result is a steep one. Lots of steps are cut it of the path and protected by rocks. Half way up there is a big overhang which looks like a a cave. The last few hundred metres the path flattens out a bit before a final little kick, which is a bit of a bottle neck.
On the top it is all orange rock and the ridge stretches for about 75 metres to a small pinnacle, interestingly infested by flies so I did not stay there for long, retreating about 10 metres away. I rested for a while taking a timelapse and taking on some water. I got chatting to a guy flying a DJI drone, he told me about the best Glass Mountain to climb Beerwah, which although is very steep in places he said it was perfectly achievable.
At the bottom of the climb two guys asked me about mosquitoes, I gave them the use of my spray. I spent the rest of the day driving and taking in the scenery, stopping off a a couple of small towns. The final leg back to Brisbane took me along a motorway that was being widened, and the traffic was heavy, such a contrast to the roads just a couple of 10’s of km west and inland.
The Friday evening we went over to the other cousin-in-law and caught up. I was invited to play poker on the Saturday night, I wasn’t sure given my lack of knowledge of the game.
The next morning we went for breakfast near G’s boxing gym. I had scrambled eggs on toast, G had a Rbens bagel, corned beef and sauerkraut, L had the fitness bowl which looked the best of our chosen dishes. The fitness bowl had a cornucopia of items, yogurt, haloumi, eggs, nuts avocado and seeds. We also were offered a sample of cold brewed black coffee, which takes 50 hours to prepare, it tasted like cold black coffee. Not my cup of tea.
L dropped me off at SD&P’s where I helped them get setup for the poker night, there was a lot of preparingvand cooking going on, they were expecting 22 players and about another 10ish family members. I set up a new Bose networked speaker for D.
Everyone arrived but there were. A couple of no shows so I agreed to join them all and play. $40 is the going fee and you get a pile of chips. The ante went up over the evening as did the small and large bets. I was a bit lost but managed to be the person with the most chips on the table at the mid evening break. After some dessert and ice cream we started playing again. I did not last long, after the break it only takes a few hands to lose a lot.
Sunday I spend over at SD&P’s we went for a ferry ride followed by a walk in the peak and lunch at an Italian deli. In the evening we went out for a Thai meal in West town, I had seafood Lhaksa which was very good. After we stopped off at a trendy coffee shop and had dessert I had citrus tart again very nice.