After we visited Lone Pine, since we were in the area we headed up to the Mt. Coot-tha lookout for lunch and a hike.
Thankfully, we ubered up the hill and hiked down, but I will claim it as a hike.
It is safe to say Mt. Coot-tha has been here longer than people, but the first people here that we know of were the Yugara Aboriginal people. According to signs and such, they came to the area to collect ‘ku-ta’ or honey. This special honey was produced by a native stingless bee, which is probably the only thing in Australia that can’t kill you.
Just kidding. It probably could.
But as usual, along came the Europeans who set up the Moreton Bay penal settlement and that was the end of that.
In 1839, James Warner, a surveyor came along and cleared the entire top of the mountain of all of the trees.
Except for one tree, which they left in place because it could be seen from a everywhere and thus they used it to take surveying measurements. Thus, the Europeans named the Mountain “One Tree Hill.”
Why this particular mountain was chosen over others in the area I am unclear. Mt Coot-tha is not the highest point in Brisbane as many will tell you. It is not even the highest peak on the mountain as both Constitution Hill and the Summit are higher.
What it does offer, probably because they cleared away all the trees is an unobstructed view of Brisbane from the lookout area.
In August 1883, One Tree Hill was officially declared a park, and renamed, but the name is not without controversy.
The name was suggested by Henry Radford, on the advice of an Aboriginal Australian named Kerwalli, who was a prominent person in the community at the time.
Coot-tha apparently was the Aboriginal name for honey, or so the story goes, and fits with what the area was called before the Europeans. But, in 1923, Archibald Meston wrote that ‘Gootcha’ is a more accurate translation, and coot-tha would translate to an obscenity. He suggested Kerwalli was playing a joke on Radford, and Radford did not understand the joke.
Either way, the mountain is now named Coot-tha.
During World War II, the mountain was used as a military base by the US and British. It was a huge explosives depot and held more than 120,000 tons of explosives.
Today the area includes several hiking and biking trails, the Brisbane Botanical Garden and library, and the Brisbane planetarium.
I freely admit, by this point in my travels, my old hip was preventing me from being as active as I wanted to be. I was very glad to have a ride to the lookout, and where the walk down was good, I doubt I could have done much more on this particular day.
I know I have slowed down the past couple of years, and I know I am less than a year out of a hip replacement, but I was doing pretty damn well overall the first part of the trip getting up and down mountains.
Since somewhere in New Zealand, the old hip decided to start complaining, and I have no idea why. Perhaps it is the climate. Perhaps I popped something out of place and need an adjustment. Perhaps my old hip is just old, but I have been getting to a point each day where I hit my wall, and the wall puts me on my ass.
It is disappointing. Here where I want to do so many things, like walk a simple trail (compared to others) and not slow down the others in the group, I struggle to maintain even my slow pace.
The days of ‘running’ from 8 am to 8 pm are a thing of the past for me, at least right now, and the frustration is causing me to step back and not do anything. Or at least not anything compared to what I want and believe I should and could be doing.
But it is not all about the hip. It is certainly not about the company or the opportunities in front of me. I’m not sure why I have slowed down so much in the past couple of weeks, but it could be as simple as I am tired and ready to go home.
No, I am not ready to go home, but I am tired.
Well, I did enjoy lunch at the lookout. I enjoyed walking down the hill. I enjoyed talking with everyone and I was ready to rest.
There is no question, if an opportunity presents itself, I will return to Australia, and I will want to see everything I am too… whatever this is… to see right now.
No matter what, I can say without a doubt, I was on top of a mountain in Australia, which makes every country I have been in, and that… is something.
oh, and there was a lizard thing. So I saw wildlife too.
