(Backup) We didn't make it

It rained.

It rained a lot.

Also, Lily threw up in my bed at 0400.  

Also, my plans of climbing Beerwah were scuppered by the rain.  We started off anyway - actually it was dry leaving Mango Hill, so the doubts only set in as we headed on to Steve Irwin Way.  

"It's a bit wet," I commented

"Oh, you noticed that too?" said Ben.

So of course we continued to Beerwah, deciding to see if it got any drier on the way (oh the dreams of fools). It didn't get any drier.  In fact, it got wetter, but that's by the way.  

My doubts started rising, but Ben seemed keen so we started climbing.  It wasn't actually raining at that point, and although the rocks were wet, my "Five Tens" were gripping really well.  When Ben realised his hiking boots were going to make him slip off the mountain and die, he took them off, deciding to attempt to climb barefoot.

It was around that point that it started to rain, the clouds came down to meet us, and the previously wet rocks became rivers and waterfalls.  Climbing up a little further, my heart in my mouth, I decided that especially as I had never even attempted Beerwah in the dry, Beerwah in the wet was not going to happen.  

Yes.  There was cloud BELOW us, and yes, those are Ben's toes.

Cloud above us too, and Ben's bare feet, as proof for Dad.

The main reason I decided not to climb any higher was that Ben told me a story of some guys who climbed up it in the cloud and lost their way and fell off the cliff and broke a leg and couldn't get rescued because the helicopter couldn't fly in the conditions.

Some of what we climbed, with added waterfalls.

A wet and concerned Kate... surely stories of people falling and being unrescuable would scare others too?

When we got back to the bottom I took a photo of Beerwah in the cloud behind us.  The cloud was lower when we were ascending: in fact you can see blue to the left, so the rain was clearly easing!  Maybe we could have achieved it!

So instead, I took Ben up Tiberoowuccum (MY mountain) and got bitten by a thousand mosquitos, all of which seemed to want to come home with us in the car.

And now, I am home, and safe, and dry, and doing countless loads of laundry on my day off to counteract Lily throwing up in my bed on EVERYTHING.