Mt. Ngungun

 

Glass House Mountains


The Glass House Mountains are volcanic plugs left by volcanic activity 26-27 million years ago. Yesterday, I hiked up Mt. Ngungun, one of the Glass House Mountains.  Mt. Ngungun rises 253 meters above sea level and can be VERY steep in places.  I read up on some information about Mt. Ngungun after the hike on a travel website and they graded the difficulty of the hike as hard.  Which it definitely was!  The hike became very steep and unstable in many places.  There really wasn’t much of a trail once we arrived at the cliffs, you just had to find good places to put your feet and begin climbing up.  This was difficult for many people and everyone was out of breath once we reached the top.  On the website it says, “This trail is rough and uneven and should only be attempted by fit walkers with suitable walking shoes with good grip.  Pace yourself and take care over the steep rocky surface.”  It sure would have been nice if we were warned about this before we arrived at the mountain.  We were all extremely shocked when we turned a corner of the trail and saw a huge rock wall we had to climb up.  The website also says that the hike “for the most part is slightly less than vertical.”  And that sure is no joke. 

Even though the hike up the mountain was rough, it was totally worth it when we reached the top.  The view was amazing!  You could see for miles in every single direction.  If you looked west you could see the other Glass House Mountains and when you looked east you could see the ocean in the distance.  I literally felt like I was on top of the world, or at least on top of Australia.  The top of the mountain wasn’t that large since it was just the very tip of the peak, so we were all gathered closely around being careful not to fall off the cliffs.  It definitely was kind of scary, but at the same time absolutely amazing.

When we were on the top we saw some people repelling off the cliffs.  That would have been the easiest and quickest way down the mountain, but our group had to walk/slide down the cliffs.  We definitely had to take our time and be very careful.  Occasionally, someone would step on a loose rock and we would all watch in terror as the rock quickly rolled down the cliff.  We all hoped that we wouldn’t be like that rock and roll down without being able to stop for a while.  Fortunately, everyone who came on this trip with me made it down the  mountain safely and we were all very excited once we reached flat ground again.



Very top!



Cool cave we found