O.K. I have officially found my favourite… Glass House Mountain that is. Well, actually, not quite true. Mt Beerwah is actually my favourite, but we are not allowed to climb that one at the moment so, no point writing about it (I climbed it about 10 years ago).
So, that clarified, Mt Ngungun is my favourite. It is not the highest, certainly not the most difficult (nor the easiest), but it is the one that is most readily scenic, accessible and the one that I will want to climb again and again, and take my friends up with out fear of fatality, fatigue, heights or not finding our way.
Mt Ngungun is 250meters high, so definitely not one of the highest peaks either – 4th in line actually. The summit track (2.8km return) will take about 25 minutes at a leisurely pace to reach the summit and is accessible via Fullertons Road just out of the township of Glass House Mountain. Find map here.
I first walked up Mt Ngungun a few years ago – actually, I ran most of the way up the first time – part of a sadistic torture treatment by suggestion and encouragement of my kickboxing instructor. Having said that, in the delirium of my run, I didn’t get much of an opportunity to appreciate the amazing landscape on the way up, nor breath in the scenery from the top. And the way down… well you run up and tell me what you notice on the way back down…
However, I do remember the track to be quite different to what it is now. The track used to be predominantly up the rockery under the rock face. It has now been diverted and is now a much more leisurely walk (maybe even run) which meanders through the bush bypassing the original track as part of a revegetation program in the national park.
Having said that, you do get close enough to appreciate the cave, which has a bit of a heart shape opening (says the romantic in me).
It really is not a hard walk, except for maybe the last few hundred meters, which becomes a little more rocky and vertically inclined. But the pay off when you get to the top, makes that little bit of exertion well worth it.
The views are absolutely SENSATIONAL. Like, really, really SENSATIONAL.
I guess that is the beauty of climbing the different mountains and lookouts as they all have different vantage points, each unique in their beauty.
There is Mt Tibrogargan to the south and Mt Coonowrin and Mt Beerwah run almost parallel west. Scattered in between are the lesser know Mt Tibberoowuccum, Mt Beerburrum and ‘the twins’, Mt Tunbubudla in the distance. The tapestry of pineapples, macadamia plantations and forestry stitching the landscape together, is absolutely breathtaking.
The summit of Mt Ngungun is like a large rockery garden and the butterflies are ballistic up there… so many… I can understand why, even they seem to understand the beauty of prime real estate views. If I were a butterfly, I would want to live there too!
We sat up there for quite some time. It takes a while to take it all in – and I didn’t have the pressure of my trainer to bark me back down! It was somewhere then that I decided that Mt Ngungun would be an AWESOME place to sit and watch the sun go down.
Seeing it was a morning visit, we decided that we did not have enough supplies to wait the day out for sundown, so we made our way back down, vowing to return.
Eager for my camera to have a bit of sunset action, we made the climb back up the very next week!
This time we prepared a little more, simply because we were not sure how good the visibility would be walking back down after the sun had set. Stumbling down the rockface in the dark didn’t exactly appeal to me. While it is not a difficult climb, there are still some sheer faces that are advantageous to avoid in the dark.
Cherry babe sorted our travel pack – water and our little miners head lights and torches – and I sorted our essentials – camera, tripod, shutter-release cable.
We checked the times for sunset and dusk and then planned our trip accordingly, leaving 30 minutes to get to the top and set up, relax and get ready to watch the sun go down. The weather was looking a little suspect, clouds threatening to make it a very uneventful sunset, but I put in a call to my weather fairy enroute and miraculously the clouds parted leaving our vantage point and sunset was pretty much unimpeded.
Of course, I thought I was the only genius that had the brilliant idea of watching the sun go down from the summit… apparently there were at least two dozen other geniuses in the Sunshine Coast area at that time – suffice to say – we were not alone. In fact it would seem that sunset gazing is quite popular at 250 meters above sea level… with views to infinity… I can’t think why…
Just for the record, it is always pretty busy up there. Abseiling clubs use Mt Ngungun as one of their practice sites with quite the highway going up and down the rockface, while the paths are somewhat of a major thoroughfare as well, but once you are up there it is not hard to find an isolated rock to make your own and watch the sun go down.
Nature really is an incredible thing and sunsets would have to be one of my favourite natural anomalies, even if it does happen on a daily basis. As far as sunsets go, it was fairly sedate, but never the less, the hews of orange that back dropped the enormous silhouettes of Mt Beerwah and Mt Coonowrin, were mesmerizingly beautiful.
All good things must come to an end, and eventually the sun did make its exit behind the range and we thought we best do the same. While we had torches, the dusk lasted long enough for us to make our way down the entire mountain, but would have been handy if we had lingered a little longer into the dusk. I was a little bit concerned about the troop of Japanese tourists that were making their way up the mount… without torches… as we were making our way down, but I didn’t see their rescue on the 6 o’clock news, so looks as though they were fine…
Day or dusk, Mt Ngungun is definitely my favourite climb. And I am not done yet… some sunrise photos would be nice too… storms in the distance… and a few more sunsets in between… so I guess I will see you up there…
To read more stories about various Glass House Mountains visit:
Please note: When climbing any of the Glass House Mountains, normal common sense applies. Please make sure you take water, stick to the tracks, wear sensible footwear, and if you choose to go up to watch the sun set, then take a torch, just to be on the safe side… and then definitely stick to the tracks on the way down.
This story was written by Petra Frieser – Pebbles + Pomegranate Seeds
