May 28, Mt Beerburrum, Newstead House

Feeling like a little hike this morning, we drove to Mt Beerburrum, one of the Glass House Mts. The brochure said a steep trail led to a fire tower lookout. 'Steep' was a gross understatement. The trail was paved, but it went straight up, ending in a few switchbacks to the summit. We were traveling up along with four women, sort of leap frogging - rest and walk, rest and walk. It felt like quite an accomplishment to reach the top. The view was good. We could see the other mountains, but in places farmers were burning their fields and the smoke blurred the view a bit. Coming down was hard on the knees.

In Caboolture we stopped at the Warplane Museum. They were moving planes around in the hangar that served as the museum. So we walked around a display of model airplanes and went outside to see a few old planes, then we moved on.

Then we drove south to Newstead House, the oldest house in Brisbane. There was a little lady manning the entrance and she made sure that we didn't miss the spoon warmer in the dining room and a pump teapot in the drawing room. The spoon warmer was a silver vessel that held hot water. A spoon would be placed in it to keep it warm and thus keep the food warm. The teapot didn't work for her, maybe no water in it. The lid was the top of a large cylinder and when it was pushed down, the tea was supposed to come out of the spout.

The rest of the house was beautifully restored to its 1846 beginnings. Capt Wickham, one of the owners had been captain of the HMS Beagle, Darwin's exploration ship. It had the lovely wide verandas of Queensland houses and sat on the banks of the Brisbane River.

We had booked a campsite south of Brisbane, so we headed there. Our GPS took us right through downtown. At 1:30 in the afternoon, it wasn't very busy and the streets were fairly wide, so we made it without too much hassle.

Now, it's mid afternoon and raining hard.

Pictures - Samson and Glass House Mts; WWII Navy Trainer, North American SNJ-Texan; Newstead House; Drawing Room; Silver spoon warmer; Interesting tree; Memorial to Americans who served in Australia in WWII; Jeanne playing around in fun house mirror