Our son's friend got married in Maleny and ever since then, he started singing praises of the beauty of this part of Australia. So we chose Maleny for the Kannan family's first holiday for 2019.
We arrived on the evening of the 17th March as torrential rains were pouring in the countryside. Enroute to Maleny we stopped by the touristic town of Monteville - we had come here 5 years previously.
Lunch was at the Poets Cafe, a restaurant with great views of the valley below. We then shopped for craft beer and ate ice cream, before heading to Maleny. Angie had booked us into the beautiful Dallington View Air B&B which afforded breathtaking views of the surrounding valley from the porch. Dallington view Air B&B is a beautiful house; the owner specialises in wedding makeup and rents out the house to honeymooners, and if a vacancy is available, to folks like us.
It has a spacious modern kitchen with all modern amenities. There are 3 bedrooms ( one with a double-decker for children ); the master bedroom has an attached bathroom with separate bathtub and shower (good jet of water) which can also be accessed by the middle room. The master bedroom opens out onto the patio with beautiful views of the valley below and the sea in the distance.
A second bathroom is off the hall of the house and is equipped with a washbasin and commode. That night we watched
Lion, a movie based on a true story about a boy who gets lost in India, gets adopted by a wonderful couple in Australia and then gets reunited with his birth mother in India 25 years later - a beautiful story with a happy ending.
The next morning the sun was out so we climbed Mt. Ngungun. It was challenging especially the steeper sections where the rocks were slippery. However, most of the track was shaded by tall trees so we were spared the heat of the sun. We met many fellow hikers along the way; most looked physically very fit but a few were grossly overweight and I shuddered to think of the challenges they were going to face in the steep sections.
After an hour, we reached the summit and the beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and neighbouring mountains was worth all the effort we had put in. I slipped and fell on a slippery rock on the way down but luckily did not suffer any injury. We then went onto Mary Cairncross Park. We stopped for tea at the Mountain View Cafe which served mouth-watering desserts - the scones were excellent as were the macadamia and lemon slice cakes.
The cafe also afforded great views of the Glass Mountains and I took many photographs of this geological wonder. My son, Arun, and I then went exploring the luscious semitropical forest in the park just adjacent to the cafe; a wallaby was foraging for food and though we heard many bird sounds the only bird that we got to see and photograph was a robin - a very active small bird that was taking a bath in the brook streaming through the jungle.
Many of the beautiful trees in this part of the jungle were more than a hundred years old stretching high up to the sky. Next on the travel itinerary was the town of Maleny. The beauty of the town was its hilly terrain, the surrounding forest and the brook that ran through it. We had lunch here - the fish and chips and the pulled lamb sandwiches at Sara's Unplugged were delicious.
After a busy morning, we were physically exhausted and headed back to our rented house and crashed! We felt refreshed after an hours sleep then drove to One Tree Hill and arrived just in time to witness the sky bathed in a kaleidoscope of colours by the setting sun. I also managed to take a beautiful picture of the glass mountains bathed in the rays of the setting sun.
That night we did takeaways from Daawat's Indian restaurant; the chicken korma and lamb dishes were satisfactory. We watched
Words, the movie that night - except for the ending, which was confusing, the rest of the movie was entertaining. We slept well that night and awakened to witness a glorious sunrise from the porch of our rented house, as rain the previous day had cleared the clouds to reveal a brilliant blue sky. As the sun rose in the sky, we saw many cows climbing the neighbouring hills to graze. Maleny is also famous for its dairy products, so after a home cooked breakfast we stopped by at Maleny Dairies to buy milk, cheese and custard on our way back to Brisbane.
