hiking | rosarunningaway

In true Aussie fashion, I woke early and eager this morning. After a busy day yesterday, surfing and swimming at a few spots on the Sunny Coast, we’d slept well and were gunning for another piece of The Sunshine. By the time we left the house I’d already polished my previous post, written some postcards home and got a couple of chapters reading in.

One thing I love (and miss) about little old overpopulated Great Britain, is that if you live near a city and don’t drive it’s no problem. Public transport is great and places are generally pretty close together making my fave mode of transport; cycling, pretty easy. Not so much in Australia and New Zealand. Since the start of my travels I have met Aussies who say they are from “near Melbourne; just about 7 hours drive…”. So my stubborn choice to fend off buying a car for as long as possible (I haven’t driven since I passed my test 3 years ago…) may soon come to an end. Especially if I want to keep surfing back in NZ! I’ve been so lucky in Aus and NZ so far, to have friends and family host and guide me, including driving me about. Today was the same and we had a Sunshine Coaster to show us some local hotspots.

First stop was a bush walk to waterfalls and rock pools. On the way we spotted these happy looking kookaburras, who when they call, sound like crazed monkies laughing. The walk took us past many impressive trees, including these twisty, hollow ones which would look right at home on a creepy woodland horror flick. I’m not sure of their name but they start life as a vine, which latches onto a host tree and surrounds, sucks and suffocates it until it dies and rots, leaving the tree-vine standing in its place. We made it to the pools and took a refreshing dip, in what was actually the warmest river I’ve swam in on my travels.

Back on the road, we stopped by a bakery and I found a post box to start the postcards on their long journey to the motherland, Newcastle (UK!). Now one thing I really hold dear from my Geordie heritage is pastry. You can’t beat a good pasty, and thinking of Greggs the bakers staying open until the early hours for a post-club cheese and onion really makes my heart twinge with homesickness. Luckily Australians share this pastry passion and I have been impressed with the range of baked goods on offer here. I opted for a delicious spinach and feta pasty (must admit, you wouldn’t find that in Greggs), to fend off my longings for the toon and fuel the next adventure of the day; climbing Mount Coolum!

The midday sun was beating down and a sign at the foot of old Coolie said it was a 2 hour round trek. Pah! We missioned on up and mounted the mount in just 20 minutes! With 360 degree crystal clear views of the Sunshine Coast it was the perfect photo opportunity.

So a post which is a little off-piste and on a tangent but I’m really having a great and active time over in Aus! Don’t want you to miss out on the pastry lo-down or adventures I’m enjoying. I hope it makes a good read.

I’m writing this whilst trying to block out the squelches, screams and crunches of another horrifically violent, badly dubbed film being played to a bus load of families. Today, it’s a bus from Baños and I’m heading back to Quito.

As I had mentioned, I decided to opt out of running in Baños due to my gammy foot. I did however do a post-worthy hike up from Baños into the mountains above, to ‘the swing off the edge of the world’, locally known as ‘El Casa del Arbol’; ‘The Tree House’.

Baños is pleasantly cool compared to out last few stops, Guyaquil and Canoa. So a 3/4 hour hike into the mountains seemed pretty manageable. After fuelling up at breakfast I bought some treats for the journey and me and my mum and set off together.

The first stretch of the walk took us to Bellavista, the old South American favourite, a religious symbol overlooking a great view of the town. Baños has a large cross from which we enjoyed impressive views of the little town in the mountains, just below the clouds.

We met a Canadian family around here and walked with them for the rest of the way. The route took us up many muddy paths, through farm land and forest. There were lots of strange and interesting plants to take in, including these polka-dot trees.

After around 3 and a half hours walking we had made it up to El Casa del Arbol and paid our one dollar entrance fee. The area consisted of a field housing the treehouse and swings, a small zip wire and a restaurant. It in the middle of the clouds and we were unable to see the mountains and vast volcano which we knew surrounded us. We sat down for a choclo con queso for lunch and watched the other tourists going for the money shot on one of the two swings which fly out over the side of the mountain.

After our leisurely lunch, the clouds were beginning to lift and the surrounding mountains were peeking through. Mum had strict instructions as photographer and I took my turn at swinging ‘off the edge of the world’. I was happy we had hung around for a little while as the views from our vantage point at 2660m altitude were beautiful. We opted for a taxi ride back down to town, but only after I bought one of these giant seed pods for 50 cents. It’s called guaba and after breaking it open you eat the slightly furry white flesh which surrounds the big black seeds inside.

On descending into town, the festivities for New Years Eve were well under way. Many of the shops and homes outide had their effigies ready for burning at midnight. This tradition is called año viejo; old year, where celebrities and characters from the previous year are burned at midnight. Other traditions include men dressing up as women and stopping traffic for money, wearing yellow underwear for good luck, and lots of masks. The town was buzzing that night and complete with fox mask and yellow knickers, I partied like an Ecuadorian until the early hours.

rosarunningaway

My experiences running, around the world.

Tag Archives: hiking

Sunshine Coast

Baños

Share this:

Share this: