Glass House Mountains

The Glass House Mountains were named by Captain Cook as he sailed up the Queensland coast in 1770. They were so called as the mountains, former volcanic plugs, reminded him of huge glass furnaces in his native Yorkshire. The mountains are situated an easy 90 minute drive North- East of Brisbane or 30 minutes West of Bribie Island. There are twelve of them with names that compete with anything else we saw in Australia (Miketeebumulgrai, Tibberoowuccum, Tibrogragan). The highest stands at 555 meters and nearly all have walking trails with varying degrees of difficulty.

Woorim

Sunrise - view from the condo.

Woorim is one of several small towns on Bribie Island an hour’s drive north of Brisbane. It is the only town on the surf side of the island. We rented a three bedroom condominium overlooking the beach and the passage to Moreton Island, a large sandy island off shore. Our condominium not only had a great view but was well appointed with a large and sunny kitchen and a huge wrap around verandah. Marielle and I would go to sleep to the sound of waves and wake up to spectacular sunrises. Well at least I would. Nearly every day started off with a long walk on the beach. In fact the beach was large enough to play an impromptu game of beach cricket one afternoon. Shopping in Woorim has every thing you need, takeaway fish and chips, bakehouse and pub. What more could I guy ask for? Bribie Island is known for its long beach (30 kilometers) accessible by four-wheel drive and its wildlife. Kangaroos, wallabies, emus, various snake species, green tree frogs and dingos often can be seen venturing from the National Park and there are over 250 bird species.

Don Bradman

As I lay awake listening to the rumble of the trains flying past our onsite van at Mittagong I thought of two things. I was never going to rent accommodation in Mittagong again no matter how convenient it is to Sydney Airport and didn’t the famous cricketer Don Bradman live around here. I wonder how he put up with the noise.

Sir Donald George Bradman was born in Cootamundra, two hours up the Olympic Highway from Wagga Wagga, on 27 August 1908. He was a batsman who played in 52 international games, scoring 6,996 runs at an average of 99.94. To give you an indication of this feat the next best batsmen in cricket history had an average of 53.86. It is like a batter in baseball hitting a home run in every game played. During the 1930’s and playing against England the English bowlers would purposely bowl at Don’s body not to get him out but just to limit his scoring. This was called bodylining.

So what’s the Mittagong connection? When Don was two-and-a-half years old his parents moved to Bowral a town 5 kilometres south of Mittagong. In fact at the age of twelve Don hit a century (over 100 runs) for Bowral Public School against the Mittagong High School.