North

'Twas Nicole's day off yesterday so we thought we would do something nice. We thought we might go up to Bribie Island mit die Hunden fur Sonnen und schwimmen but decided in the end to go up to Moolooloobah to a doggy beach we saw many years ago (weeks actually, it just seems like years) which Nicole remembered as being dog friendly. I had also found out a lookout point over the Glass House Mountains which I fancied a go at, and which we could take in on the way back home.

About an hour later we were there, and the surf was roaring in, with probably a couple of feet worth of breakers. Nothing too extreme.

We walked up the beach a little way and staked out our spot. There was a fresh breeze, if that's the right term, and it wasn't too hot. We were all jolly happy little paddly people and animals. I threw balls for the dogs with my Big Red Ball Thrower and the dogs ran into the sea until a wave came towards them. Then they stopped running into the sea, and ran out of the sea, decided discretion was the better part, etc. etc. and besides I seemed to paddle in and get the ball when it got washed back in anyway. The currents as the surf washed out again were very strong - so we got Squeaky in there.

The moon was high in the sky - and rising - and if I'd put two and two together I would have realised that this meant that the tide was coming in, and that we should probably expect the odd big wave to come in behind me when I wasn't looking and while Nicole and Eloise weren't looking, wooshing up and soaking poor Sproggy, spilling her off her feet, as well as dampening my derriere to boot.

Things went downhill from there as Eloise obviously didn't think we were giving her the care and attention she really deserved. She whinged bitterly until we decided to call it a day (after we'd had some fun games with the dogs, paddled around a lot, and been swimming - well I say swimming, I suppose really it was slightly braver paddling with swimming costumes on).

So we picked up a pizza and some beer (yes, for Nicole) on the way down to the Bruce Highway and we got down to Wild Horse Mountain about 5.45 with the sun getting low in the sky. It wasn't far off the Bruce but a sign informed us there was a 700 metre steep climb to get to the lookout. Ugh!

Off we went and it was hard going I can tell you. I wanted to snappy snap so I was in a bit of a rush, but Matilda was much more interested in sniffing the undergrowth. Nicole offered to take Matilda, which I appreciated as I had Sproggy on my back and my legs were hurting, and I hot footed it up the hill, once hearing impolitenesses from behind as Nicole was pulled off her feet.

Up at the top was a covered gallery. A proper photographer was there with a very nice Panoramic camera was there, I might have to get one of those... a snip at only several thousand pounds.

Looking out over the Glass House Mountains though the view was quite eye boggling. Picturesque wouldn't really do it justice. The mountains were laid out beneath us like, well, steep bumps in the land, but until you see them all together you don't really understand how steep, bumpy, and unnatural they look, poking as they do out of gently undulating flat land all around.

So I took a couple of piccies, and was quite pleased with myself until I realised that I'd lost my third lens cap in as many months, and my lens was not as clean as it could be. Which is to say it probably couldn't have been much dirtier. Still you can't tell that sort of thing in the dark, and I didn't realise until we got home. Oh well!

Still it was very nice looking out over the spectacular vista as the sunsetting, munching on pizza and drinking chahocalola with my wife, my daughter and my dogs. Eloise was running around staring at strange people and the dogs were barking and whining, tied up as they were at the far side of the railings. Nicole was the only well-behaved one out of the lot of them. I gave the dogs some pizza.