Skiing the Planet

Monday, April 1, 2024

Mt. Etna Caves National Park

Mt. Etna Caves National Park is a limestone outcrop from ancient coral reefs. It has been named after the volcano in Sicily, of course... (vuriously though, why does there have to be an "old continent" equivalent for everything?). There's caves and bats, e.g., the little bent-wing bats and ghost bats.

There's a cave, although you can't enter it too far as there's a locked gate. The cave is just behind the park building in the Camoo picnic area, in coordinates S 23.163446 E 150.466484. This cave had probably hundreds of butterflies.

Actually there are many caves but I could find one in the limited time I had. From the Queensland page (link below) you can see that there's actually two locations, and to enter a bigger cave one has to be not in Camoo but in the Mount Etna Bat Cleft. Follow the Rossmoya Road to get there.

For more information, see the park page, wikipedia, and Queensland page.

Flora:

An exit of the only cave I found:

More of the butterflies:

Romantic butterfly picture!

More information about other caves I visited in the area can be found from these articles:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko, map picture is a snapshot from Google Maps. All rights reserved.

Paradise Caves at the Sunshine Beach

Paradise Caves. So near (maybe just 1m from the drip line) but so far. There was only three ways in, one covered by tide, and the other two were rock ledges sloping towards a cliff. And the rain and the sea swell had made everything more slipper than I liked. Turned around.

The Paradise Caves are 100 meters north from the end of the Sunshine Beach, a wonderful beach and beach town. The best way to the caves would be to walk around a small rock outcrop, but that was the one that would require lower tide and/or smaller waves. But it was quite windy, and I did not have time to wait for lower tide.

After asking the locals, they stated that a visit was not possible. They did say one can look by going over the rock outcrop and see if one can go down. I did climb up, and that part was easy.

However, getting lower to the cave was the problem. At the top of the rock outcrop actually would extend all the way to the cave, as a couple of meters wide smooth rock surface, but it would slope towards the drop, and it would have been a high drop if one would fall, at least five meters.

Another path was to descend through a small crack in the outcrop using chimney technique. The crux there was that one would have to reach lower to exit the crack to a lower level smooth rock surface. I considered doing it, it seems maybe feasible. But again, this rock surface also sloped the wrong way again, this time dropping to the raging sea below.

So I decided against these options :-( What a wimp again.

Closest I got:

View from above the crack:

View from the top of the rock outcrop towards the cave (see also the opening photo of this post):

Instead, I retreated back to the beach and while I did not do a proper swim, at least went in waist deep in my shorts. It was nice.

There was an interesting feature on the beach, by the way. The forests in this area grow the Tea Tree, and it is known to color waters flowing through the forest in tea-colors... hence a little stream coming down from the hills towards the sea looked like this:

The cave coordinates are S 26.394911 E 153.116547. The beach is here. Or technically, that's the dogs-unleashed-area, and maybe a dog beach... but you can also swim here :-) The human beach proper is more towards the south. From south you can also find parking, here.

Mount Beerburrum Bat Caves

Mount Beerburrum is part of the Glass House Mountains National Park, on the east coast of Queensland, Australia, an hour north of Brisbane. These striking formations are old volcanic plugs that are left standing higher when other rock material around them has eroded over millions of years. But I'm here because Google Maps tells me that there's a "Bat Cave" on the side of the mountain.

Sadly, I did not find it. Or put more accurately, I chickened out to explore it. There's a trail that leads to the top of the mountain, which I took. Roughly half-way up the trail crosses maybe 50-100 meters from the presumed Bat Cave. However, the forest, the bushes, the undergrowth, and the leaves cover were all extremely thick. I was scared of Australia's wonderful but dangerous snakes and other biting things. I would have had to clear my way through the bushes, knee deep in what I wouldn't have been able to see.

What a wimp :-( In retrospect, I should have gone for it, maybe tramping my feet to scare off any animals. But it was also hard going terrain, not just thick but also steep. Oh well.

There was very little information in the Internet about the caves by the way, just one Google Maps entry. Nothing else. Also, none of the locals I met on the way knew anything about a cave. I would have been happier if I saw even the smallest resemblance of a path to the cave, but it was like no one had ventured from the official path in that direction.

Back to the Glass House Mountains. They are so named because they looked like glass houses to James Cook on his expedition :-) The mountains are also significant for the First Nation Peoples, who gathered in the area for ceremonies and trade.

The mountain top and the observation tower is in coordinates S 26.955749 E 152.949054. A parking lot for the tour is not where Google will tell you (because the old, upper parking lot has been closed off) but instead you can find it from here. There are many hikes in the around, of varying length. The hike to the top is strenuous, steep but only lasts 1.5 hours return included, and runs for a large part on good quality concrete pavement. But it is indeed steep.

For more information, see here, here, and here.

Views from the top, including some of the nearby other Glass House Mountains:

A plant in front of the mountain:

Observation tower at the top:

Springbrook's Natural Bridge

Can you see them? Glow worms, in their natural habitat! We had just been in the artificial glow worm cave, and wanted to check out a natural bridge in the Springbrook National Park. But it turned out that the natural bridge was also a waterfall, a cave with a waterfall, and home to plenty of nature's own glow worms. Very nice!

We visited the cave in late afternoon, but an even better time would be after dusk, when you can see the glow worms even better. The cave is pretty dark even at daylight hours, but the dimly lit glow worms are much easier to see in complete darkness.

There's a maybe half a kilometer walk to and from the cave, including some uphill on the way back. The coordinates of the cave are roughly S 28.229730 E 153.243156. It is on the one-way walking path from the parking lot.

More information about the Springbrook National Park can be found from the Aussie Bushwalking page, Gold Coast page, Queensland page, and Wikipedia.

Tamborine Mountain Glow Worm Caves

The world's only man-made cave with glow worms. Nice. Wish we had this in somewhere in Vantaa, maybe in one of the big garden complexes. Anyway, it really is nice that they try to maintain a population and show it to tourists. The glow worms are real, of course, though they live in an artificial cave where the caretakers release some insects every day.

The important philosophy lesson from the visit was:

On the site there are also frogs and Australian water dragons, though I did not see any.

The site is also home a winery and has a nice restaurant.

The entrance and setup for the artificial cave is very well done, fits the environment exactly. Inside there are some handrails and cabling etc. which is understandable, though you would normally not see most of it.

There's a good introduction to glow worms in a short movie before entering the cave proper, and a guide that shows us around in the glow worm cave afterwards. And there were plenty of glow worms. Exactly how many are visible depends on a lot of factors, they have to be hungry to want to shine a light to attract food. I think in general people may be disappointed that their experience in real or artificial showing of glow worms doesn't live up to photographs they've seen, but ... I think the trick is to get your eyes used to the darkness.

Our guide used a dim a red light to show some details of the glow worms. And all of us had a glow-in-the-dark patch in our backs to avoid us bumping into each other. But these things, at least for me, shone too bright. I protected myself from the light of the patches by shielding them with my hat, and then I saw a lot of the worms. I was really happy about the experience!

My only complaint is that it wasn't possible to photograph the glow worms, though I fully understand why. Large groups of tourists would disturb the glow worms and other tourists' experience even with just their phone screen lights. Let alone accidentally using the flash.

Tamborine Mountain is maybe an hour south of Brisbane. Our visit there a nice companion visit to our other destination, the Natural Bridge in Springbrook, one hour further south of Tamborine Mountain. There you can see glow worms in their natural habitat, and even take photos. Both are also easily reached from Gold Coast.

The official site of the place is here. Their coordinates are S 27.936365 E 153.189937. There's also a Wikipedia link. And you can read more about glow worms here. I had previously heard that the glow worms use light to attract mating partners, but I learned on this visit that this is not the case, they use the light to attract insects that get stuck in a hanging stick snare that they have.

I can also recommend stopping at the high ridge near Tamborine Mountain for some views. Here's the location: maps link.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Brisbane's Streets Beach

Swim at the ”Australia’s only inner-city, man-made beach”, Streets Beach.

Streets Beach is right in the touristy area of South Brisbane, between the river and the restaurant area, and the big conference hotel and center. Very nice, basically a shallow pool but with added nice clean sand, lifeguards, and a lot of activity during the day. Very popular with families.

I visited on my way back to my hotel after the conference sessions, so later in the evening. This made the sun not burn so hot on my skin... and the pool was also empty.

There are bathrooms, changing rooms, and showers as well, under the nearest restaurant complex. There's also plenty of beach chairs and other seating around, and some shade with the trees. And indeed many bars and restaurants to get those drinks and snacks.

Streets Beach is one part of the nice park area, South Bank Parklands. This is an area opened in the early 1990s, having originally been the site of the 1988 World Expo.

Much recommended!

Links: Queensland.com, Visit Brisbane, Wikipedia.

Night views from high above South Brisbane in the below picture. Taken from my hotel which also had a pool (see the other article).

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

Pool and sauna at the Hope Street Apartments

While in Brisbane, I stayed at the Hope Street Apartments, a hotel/service apartment facility in South Brisbane next my conference venue. Affordable, my own kitchen, laundry machines in the apartment, etc. They had a pool and sauna as well. Of course, otherwise I would not have stayed there :-)

The pool was ok, sauna was ok, maybe not great. But it was great that they had them, free for use at even early in the morning or late in the night. And superb views! And when I checked in at 8am I was able to use them before getting my room.

Views from the pool deck (4th floor):

Views from my apartment (29th floor):

Takeoff from HEL

Wonderful views from the Finnair A350-XWB's windows as we took off from Helsinki to Singapore.

This was after my equally wonderful sauna experiences in the Finnair's HEL lounge (see the other story).

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Hot in HEL

Go against the flow - from HEL to SIN this time. On my way to the IETF meeting in Brisbane. First row seat on this first leg at the appropriately hot lounge in HEL.

And it is bliss. This is such a nice lounge, cannot think of any other lounge that I would prefer over it, merely based on the sauna!

Some complaints though, it closes already at 17:30. Since my flight was around midnight, I came to the airport 6 hours earlier just to experience it :-) Can we PLEASE extend the lounge times of the Platinum lounge, Finnnair? (Not that it may matter for me... I will lose my status soon, flying less.)

Once the better lounge was closed, I migrated to the business lounge. At times it felt like I was at the Moomin Valley International airport, though:

Back in the better lounge, the classic they have is the reindeer burger: