We are trying to go somewhere new every weekend. Today we drove to the Glass House Mountains, about an hour’s drive North. The idea was to do some mountain biking, and some photography.

Turns out we did rather more of the latter than the former. We just cannot resist a sign that says “Mountain lookout —>”. So we followed. And followed. And more. At no point did the signs indicate how far the lookout was. Eventually we ran out of paved road. Some more up. We should have guessed that “mountain lookouts” are generally situated up. Finally, a tiny car park, mostly full, and a fantastic panorama greeted us.

Another sign we are suckers for: “Circular lookout path, 800m”. Naturally, we followed it. A lovely, winding path through dense forest, steeply falling away at one side. Not a guard rail in sight, obviously. Then, thumping noises to our left. Kangaroos! The first bit of wildlife we’ve seen in Queensland in the wild. They looked at us curiously, and eventually hopped off when some children squealed “Kangaroos!”. Hint: If you want to see wildlife, don’t yell.

Thus the day was a success already, but, we hadn’t done any mountain biking yet. We found a likely-looking (i.e. empty) car park a bit further down the mountain, with trails going off it, marked variously with “no trail bikes”, “no mountain bikes”, “no horse riding” etc. The Obsessive Cyclist located one that didn’t say “no mountain bikes” and went off to explore. I curled up with a book on a convenient tree stump. After a while, the noise of sharp braking alerted me to the return of the explorer. And couldn’t believe my eyes. He was covered in mud. Bike. Shoes. Shorts. T-Shirt. And had a huge grin on his face. It has been raining a lot recently, and apparently it was a tiny bit muddy. You don’t say…?

Somebody has to be sensible here, and we have a car with nice, comfy leather seats. I insisted he change his clothes (yes, we had carried a change of clothes — experience etc), then wash the bike with some water before putting it back in the car. From somewhere, a rooster turned up, eyeing up the muddy bike.

Anyway, here are some piccies of a successful day.