Gully and Elise's Travel Blog: Queensland: God's Country

Bumper sticker on the car of the owner of the campground we stayed in. Typical bogan view on immigration, I guess.

Sadly, we have reached as far north in Australia as we’re going to get on this trip. There are many amazing places further up the coast, but we can’t squeeze everything in. We just bought our flight to Vietnam, so we only have a few weeks remaining in this great country.

The place was Glass House Mountains, and it was only our second trip into the hinterland, or non-coast, of Australia. We went to do a bit of hiking and mountain viewing, although the Glass House Mountains are more like mole-hills, since the tallest one tops out at 555 meters. But they were advertised as being oddly-shaped, so we went to see what it was all about.

The Glass House Mountains are in the state of Queensland. Now, we were warned about Queensland by an unnamed Australian friend, so we went in with a bit of hesitation. We were told: “Queensland is full of bogans”. I know that most of our audience probably have never heard that term before, so here is a link to a definition. Once you read this, you’ll understand why we had reservations about visiting the area. Another claim to fame of this area is the Australia Zoo, which was Steve Irwin’s zoo. The rest of the world may have moved on after his death, but not here. About every 500 meters on ‘Steve Irwin Way’ (the main highway) there is a giant billboard with a larger-than-life picture of Steve practically making out with a crocodile or other reptile, with the words ‘Crikey!!! Come visit the Australia Zoo!!!!’ underneath. It’s not very classy, but then again it is bogan country.

In case you were wondering, we were accepted at the campground with open arms despite the fact that we were born neither black nor white Australian. I guess they really needed the money...

-E