Easter Mountain Climbing

We spent Easter Sunday day-camping with friends, climbing Mt Ngungun, one of the Glasshouse mountains. We set off intrepidly...

but I didn't mind keeping a more relaxed pace with our youngest mountaineer. We found lots of interesting things along the way.

After meandering gently upwards for a little while, we came to the exciting part. Grandma Nani shouldered Jimmy and took off! (She's like that. I think she only sleeps four hours a night.)

It was a wonderful track, full of gnarled roots that had me in mind of "Lord of the Rings".

Matt climbed to the rescue (a bit nervous himself) when Miss G got the heebie jeebies in the steep and slippery cave. I loved the cave because it was great preparation for our upcoming unit on early humans.

Our expedition party! Still got more climbing to do though...

Jimmy wanted to dismount and go it alone. He did an awesome job; we were proud of our little troopers.

Made it! This summit really tested my commitment to allowing the children to take responsibility for themselves. Gulp! Gosh, it was very nerve-wracking. There were many commands of "SIT DOWN! ON YOUR BOTTOM!"

I think we all enjoyed a good sense of achievement.

We took our time on the descent and had fun eating salad rolls and making ochre paint. Yesss! More prep for early humans ;0)

Past the Scribbly Gums and we were down.

Back at camp we enjoyed a second lunch and a lie around on the ground. Then it was time to start the campfire.

Jim had a great little set-up making roasted guavas. They tasted a bit like tomatoes...I found a couple of bites was plenty.

Boys and fires. It's ingrained in that deep deep limbic brain.

The sun went down, the yellow moon and twinkling stars came out, and we roasted a few marshmallows, before it was time to go home. That was a great day, thanks friends!