Sabbatical IX - Leaving, Arriving, Not Going to Gympie

Tuesday, May 28 – A make and mend day in Athenree, waiting out the rain showers.  I was able to get out for a run early in the morning before the raindrops.  Eight kms was basically a full tour.  A lovely little beach town; neat houses and yards – tidy, in a word.  A near-the beach feel sort of like Isla Vista near UCSB, but without the students and their effluents.  Older homes on the flats near the bay, and a stretch of larger more affluent places on the heights.  I suspect many of the houses are second homes or partial vacation rentals. 

Anyway, make and mend.  You may have read the “make” – blog VII and VIII.  Mending was more about taking a day off from driving and deciding what to do.  Too many choices of places and interesting activities on North Island.  The rain helped by dissuading me from venturing off site.  Oh, and being able to soak in the thermal pools at will was good.  The hot water here is very different from Rotorua.  As explained by signage in the pool area, the hot water is tapped through a well into the plumbing system of a 3-5 million year old layer of ignimbrite (think Pompeii) which is still heating up the surrounding groundwater.  It didn’t smell either. The signs said it was rich in N2 and CO2 rather than H2S.  It thus tended to coat me and my swim trunks with tiny bubbles, and to make my skin feel silky. 

I even got to the point of learning that there is no good TV in New Zealand, despite access to a pair of Maori channels.  I felt rested by the end of the day, mentally prepared for the descent into the Auckland urbanscape, saying adios to MG, and getting packed up for my flight to Australia.  The sun arrived in time to set:

Clear skies overnight, finally saw Scorpio, the Southern Cross, and the span of the Milky Way.

Wednesday, May 29 – Awake around dawn, to sunrise over the Pacific.  Ow, bright.  Pack up MG, with regret.  I am sad at this conclusion.  I will miss my old Nissan war pony.  He did right by me.  But a final day together, heading back to Auckland.  A good start by walking on Waihi Beach:

Further delay by having a look at the Martha Mine pit in Waihi.  This is a gold and silver mine; the pit is currently inactive, but mining continues underground (and under Waihi).  Small on the scale of the Hamersley Iron Mines, but still a big hole:

This area at the base of the Coromandel Peninsula is NZ’s gold country.  There was a serious 19^th century rush in the mountains east of Waihi.  Much of the infrastructure from this is now subsumed by the bush.  There used to be a full sized stamp mill in the area behind me in this picture, in Karangaheke Gorge:

All done now, converted to hiking and biking trails. 

Across the Haurkai Plain (deltaic?) to Auckland on Route 2.  Windy, MG aiming for spinnaker status.  North on Route 1 (four lanes!).  Back to Mad Campers.  1935 kilometers in MG.  A chat with Amy and Hannah.  Uber to my Airbnb.

Well, it’s time.  I’ve made it, all my stuff is sorted.  I have had a profoundly lucky time on North Island.  The weather was unusually fine.  Maybe chilly on race morning and foggy on Tongariro, but overall, it was dry.  People have asked me how I find North Island, compared to South Island (which Paul and I toured in 2006).  My answer; it’s more developed (agriculture, tree farms, etc.) and more populous, for better or worse, and there is a lot more to do.  There is basically a circuit one can drive around the montane core of South Island; here you can zip around in more directions.  I think I saw everything that was at the top of my curiosity list.  I learned I could have spent another week walking on the beach (Northland will be on the next itinerary).  It was also good for me to be here in the off-season.  I would have thrived less if the places I went were crowded.

A good phase one. 

Goodbye to MG

Thursday May 30 – Up at 3:15, in time for a 3:40 Uber to Auckland Airport.  My flight was at 6:20, but all the Qantas check-in information urged a very early arrival.  I tend to be twitchy about airline logistics, so I was happy to comply.  My luggage weighed 2 kg less than at SFO.  I can’t figure out why; I’ve only added to the mass so far.  I’ve certainly lost weight, which is equally odd.  I can’t be that much more active than at home.

Adios to my luggage.  I trusted it would not take a separate flight to Brisbane (it didn’t). Wonder the Auckland international terminal, which has been fully renovated since my last pass through.  The expected Ikea-like winding path through duty-free shopping. There must have been as much alcohol on offer as in the average Costco.  No need, nor for sweets, perfume, electronics, or weird medicinal potions (green mussel shell?).  After a good kilometer walk, I find my gate, where the e-signs say, Relax.  I do.  These other signs made me both amused and sad:

Finally time to get tense and queued up.  Here’s my passport, here’s my boarding pass.  Jetway.  Seat, tight like the last Qantas 737.  I am too groggy to care, and the Chilean girl next to me will just have to enjoy my left knee in her peripheral vision the whole way 3 hours and 55 minutes to Brisbane. Over the Tasman, flying into morning.

Early touchdown.  Customs biosecurity inspector is so happy I’ve washed my boots with detergent.  Into Australia. 

My plan is to rent a car and drive 120 kms north out of Brisbane, to the Sunshine Coast (this is a place) Hinterland (also a place), which is subtropical rainforest, and do some hiking in Mapleton Falls National Park.  Based on pre-trip research, it looked both accessible and had promising walks. 

So Alamo Rental – just walk out that door, mate, it’s the only black Mitsu Mirage in the first lot.  It was, a little econocar.  My stuff fit.  I fit.  It was new, at 8500 kms 1/18^th the mileage of dear MG.  GPS set, off from Brisbane International. 

Numerous initial happy impressions.  I was back in a familiar botany – acacias as far as I could see off the motorway.  I was on a real highway – 4 lanes - 6 lanes!  No random curves or roundabouts.  Almost like driving in North America.  I could relax and watch the landscape go by.  I had also changed geology and hence geography.  The coastal plain was much flatter, with low mountain ridges inland.  A much older landscape– most of this terrain has been eroding and getting flatter for longer than New Zealand has been land.  Tectonic quiescence vs. tectonic vigor.  Also a familiar scenario from my times in Western Australia, although there the ocean is to the west. 

Australian drivers tend to be genteel, so where the speed limit was 100 kph, most everyone is cruising at 95.  Works for me.  In a new, peppy car, this was just fun.  A final way to be certain I was in Aus a road sign reading:

Redcliffe – 24 km

Cairns – 1629 km

North on the M1 Motorway, past Narangba, Burpengary (I did not make this up, see below), Caboolture and Upper Caboolture.  I exited the M1 at Beerburrum onto Steve Irwin Drive (yes, that Steve Irwin) to have a look at the Glass House Mountains.

Into the Queensland countryside.  The distinct smell of rural temperate Australia – a mix of tea tree and eucalypt.  Here overprinted by the odor of fresh cut hay.  I rolled all the windows down.  I knew from my reading that the Glass Houses were a look and see stop.  Well worth it for the again, typically Australian, flat plan with weird lumpy rocks sticking up in the landscape:

  

These 11-13 peaks (geologists count differently than tourism boards) are the hard, resistant cores of a bunch of Oligocene volcanoes that formed over the East Australia Hotspot.  At 25-27 million years old, that’s an order of magnitude older than the Taupo Volcanic Zone.  The volcanoes are long gone, but the volcanics persist, covered by the bush.   They were named the Glass House Mountains by Captain James Cook, who poked around here in the 18^th century.  He thought they resembled English glass foundries.

I pressed on, taking backroads roughly northwest into the Blackall Range: more eroded volcanic remnants from the from the East Australia Hotspot.  I know, I shouldn’t drop all this geology in here without explanation.  A hotspot is a relatively long lived plume of magma that forms deep in the Earth’s mantle, through still debated processes that are largely independent of plate tectonics, which does most of the shuffling of the Earth’s crust.  Yellowstone, Hawaii, and Iceland are all hotspots (there are lots more).  Hotspots often melt through the crust, hence volcanoes.  As a plate moves over a hotspot, you get a trail of volcanoes, like the Hawaiian Island chain.  The East Australia Hotspot is still cooking, apparently; there are Aboriginal reports of eruptions.  I desist.

I was driving through working lands like on North Island.  More livestock here; Malney has a large creamery (I got yoghurt).  Fewer tree farms.  The ag land was more chopped up by the ridges of the Blackall Range.  Along with thick strips of native bush along the roads, the landscape felt more pastoral and less utilitarian and harsh.  Lunch shopping and a long black in Beerwah.  Malney, Montville, Flaxton, and finally through Mapleton to the National Park. 

A tiny road sign, and as small car park.  A table and lunch.  Moms and toddlers came and went.  A car full of local hoons (based on the death metal music) cruised through.  A French couple parked, got out and seemed to argue.  They were parked next to me in a road trip-equipped car from West Australia.  If they’ve driven that far, they can be fussy. 

Fed, so to hike.  “Great Walks” are a thing here, basically hiking and or biking trails that are strung together to attract tourists, and I suspect to encourage conservation.  I followed part of the Sunshine CoastHinterland Great Walk. 

Subtropical rainforest looks a bit different than subalpine heather.  Broadleaf understory, and the middle story and canopy a mixture of acacias – turpentine, blackbutt, brush box, flooded gums.  A familiar arrangement: far from Middle Earth.  Surprisingly dark once I got away from the trailhead:

My DSLR wanted to shoot at ISO 1600.  Quiet in the early afternoon other than my footfalls and occasional stumbles.  I wandered vaguely uphill, crossing a few streams with dense stands of piccabean palms, which like the damp:

The big ones grow amazing buttressed trunks:

A trail sign explained how to deal with leeches, which are common here when it’s rainy.  I found a forest road and somehow lost the Great Walk.  This made for better picture making:

An eventual intersection, and a return to my car.  Probably about 10kms in total.  I was tired, it had been an early day.  On to my Airbnb in Mapleton for a long night’s unconsciousness.

Friday May 31 – My plan was to return my vehicle and move on to my downtown Brisbane Airbnb by evening.  Having seen the Blackall Range, I thought it would be nice to go to the ocean.  I decided to head to Noosa National Park.  I’d heard of Noosa.  Asics made a running shoe called the Noosa Tri for a few years; there is a famous triathlon there.  The shoes were something west of Jackson Pollock.  They didn’t fit me well. 

Neither did Noosa.  To get to the park, I had to navigate through kilometers of progressively more upscale beachfront communities.  Another abrupt transition after the quiet of the Blackalls.  There was no parking at the trailhead.  Rather than circle, I went to Plan B, going down the coast for a hike up Mt. Coolum, another blob of volcanic rock right at the coast.  It promised good views.  But this park was closed: trail maintenance.  Well, Plan C.  I’d seen a sign a bit up the road – Beach Access.  This turn led me thorough dozens of beach houses to Point Arkwright.  Success.  A long walk, an hour of staring at waves, and lunch before getting back on the road.  A few pictures:

I am glad it was too cold to go for a swim

Airport.  Skytrain to Brisbane CBD.  Haul my luggage about a kilometer to my Airbnb in Brisbane Skytower.  Lovely augen gneiss pavers on the sidewalks, but making for a rough surface.  Another short term home, but with a view this time:

Gympie is somewhere northwest of Noosa.  Every time I used my navigation app, it seemed to say “take the (insert name of town)-Gympie Road” etc.  I was beginning to think I was destined to go to there.  I did not.