Australia is not flat

Mt.Tibrogargan,
originally uploaded by BrisbaneBryce.

This is a photo of an amazing place I stumbled upon. It took some doing, but I eventually got up close and personal with this mountain. Its name is Tibrogargan, which is truly an odd name. Sounds to me like a combination of Polish/Central European and "gargle". Anyway, it's part of the range known as the Glasshouse Mountains, and is clearly visible from the M1 motorway, driving North from Brisbane on the way to the Sunshine Coast. I spent the better part of a day circling around this, trying to get closer. I eventually found the Glasshouse Mountain Lookout, which is a well appointed rest stop (by Australian standards). There's a very nice parking lot, an octagonal lookout, picnic tables with shades, and what I take to be gas-fired grills. Oh, yes...there are even rest rooms.

These mountains are surrounded by pineapple fields, a National Park, and a State Forest. The State Forest is remarkable, because it's clearly a tree plantation...all one species of pine. You can tell the boundaries, because the natural trees, which you can see in the photo, a eucalyptus. The locals call them gum trees.

For some reason, and I have no idea where this came from, I had this preconceived notion that Australia was flat. It's not. It's full of hills and valleys, and occasionally old worn-down mountains like this. By California standards, these things are mere hills, since they are perhaps no more than 1500 feet tall. The coastal hills near San Francisco are around 3000 feet, while the tallest mountain in California, and the lower 48, is Mt. Whitney, which comes in at 14,000+ feet. There hasn't been much tectonic activity in Australia for quite some time, so all the mountains have been eroded. It'll be another 500 million years or so before Australia collides with Southeast Asia, and creates a new mountain range.

It was a beautiful day when I took these, and I can further attest to the hills and valleys because I also went out bike riding, and took the Land Rover out through some fire trails. Up and down, up and down. I am seriously out of shape, but with a place like this so near, I'm motivated to get out and take my bike on the back roads. If you can, take a look at the full size version of this photo.

A big high five for the Glasshouse Mountains.