We've been on the Sunshine Coast for three weeks now, but we haven't seen too much sunshine. So when we finally got a nice day, we headed outdoors. Suz and Sean (friends of ours from Australia) were in town for the day too, so they came with us to see the sights.
Our house looks out over Howe Sound, but it actually backs onto Soames Hill. There are three or four different trails starting at the other side of the hill from us up to the summit. We found out later that there is also a trail that starts about 500m from our house, but since we didn't know that at the time, and our super reliable car is still out of action, we walked 3 or 4 kms uphill just to get to the start of the trail.
It was very much worth it though. The trail goes through the forest, over a few streams and then there are steps up to the summit. The forest we walked through was beautiful. The trees are enormous, lots of ferns, and everything was so ridiculously green! It was exactly like the setting of the movie 'Twilight" (fans will know what I'm talking about).
From the top of the hill the view was fantastic. We could see all the surrounding islands and had a great view of Gibsons. When we came back down, we went via a different trail which was, if possible, even more beautiful than the first! The only disappointment for the day, was that we didn't get to see any bears. And after Simon and Sean spent all morning google-ing 'what to do if you see a bear'!
