7th – 10th May

We stayed in a self service apartment close to the bridge. It was basic but good enough for our needs, and certainly more comfortable than the tent had been! It was located next to a construction site that had work being undertaken from 6am in the morning, and needless to say with curtains that didn’t close properly (fixed later on with the bed spread looped through the curtain rail..), we were up early every morning.

We had four days in Brisbane and had hired a car from East Coast rentals. We wanted to see as much of the coast line as possible. The weather was spectacular; sunny and warm. If this is winter in Oz…

Day 1: South Bank and the CBD

After breakfast of crunchy nut cereal, we did all of our chores. Washed our clothes, went shopping at Cole’s and bought sufficient supplies for the next few days. I made up some sandwiches (salami, cheese, tomato, cucumber, lettuce and mayo.. mmm yummy!) and off we went.

We love a botanic garden, so naturally this was our first stop, and we followed the scenic river walkway to the bridge.

I enjoyed the shading!

We arrived at the Streets Beach, which was in South Bank. It was very cool, and we enjoyed the vibe! There were swimming pools, beaches, kids play parks, fountains to cool off in, and bars and restaurants. It was pretty quiet, gladly not the weekend!

This guy was watching us eat our sandwiches, hoping for a bite! We chilled at the beach and went for a swim.

Chilly water but very refreshing.

Spot the Andy…

We wandered back to the hotel and cooked, early to bed after an episode of ‘Lego Masters’. It was tense, but apparently it’s been on the telly for months, we are only getting into it for the finals week. God these people are geeks. Apart from the one woman involved. She’s very artistic!

Day 2: Noosa Headlands

The builders woke us up at 4am this morning, pouring concrete. It was so loud whilst we were having our breakfast on the balcony we could barely hear each other!

We drove north for a couple of hours to the Noosa Headlands. The drive was all along the highway, and there wasn’t too much to look at. Missing cycling already..

We arrived and there was a Californian vibe of too many people, not enough parking, and queues of cars slowly inching through the town. We did the loops but ended up parking a little way away. We walked along the paved path to the end, keeping our eyes pealed for koalas! We reached sunshine bay and, sweaty and hungry, we stopped for lunch. We ate our sarnies, and were all of a sudden swarmed By flies. Except they weren’t flies they were mosquitoes! Day time mosquitoes!?!?! Argh. Went for a swim to wash them off. We walked back via the bush walk, which was a quieter route. Didn’t see any koalas – they have all gone 😦

Walked back to the car and got an ice cream along the way. I went for a pistachio flavour – delicious!

Day 3 – Coolangatta

The builders started work hammering later this morning, how reasonable of them.

We had to get more breakfast items and bread for sandwiches but soon set off for the Gold Coast. After some speedy research on best beaches I found a place called Coolangatta which proclaimed to be quieter than Byron Bay but still beautiful. That’d do.

We arrived and set up a spot, it really was beautiful. We went for a swim and I blogged for a while whilst Andy read the news.

After the customary amount of time we went for a walk to the snapper rocks. Google told me there was a good look out, and always in search of a hill to climb, off we went!

Gold Coast city in the background.

Lots of people were gathered around some railing and there was a rig of lights being installed. We were told there was filming going on for a new film called ‘Monster Problems’ staring the guy from Maze Runner.. ooh. We watched them all and marvelled at Hollywood in action.

We walked back to the original beach and went for a final swim. As we were showering off the sand I realised that my glasses were nowhere to be found. Rats. Retracing our steps we raked our eyes over the sand but to no avail. They were gone. Oh well. The score of ‘lost items’ is currently running at 2:1 to Andy. Mine are just slightly more expensive though..

We drove down the road to Currumbin where there was a look out point called ‘elephant rock’. The sunset was incredible. Gorgeous.

Day 4 – Australia Zoo

I woke up early to research where I could buy glasses. Luckily I had a recent prescription. Could I order a pair in England and get M&D to send them here, but how long would that take? And where would we be? Could I buy some in Australia? But where from? Did they allow that, or were they madly expensive and strict like the US? In the end I decided not to worry about it. Today was our last day in Brisbane, glasses or not, I was going to enjoy it!

On the top 10 things to do in Brisbane is the Australia Zoo. It professes to be kind to animals, allows animal encounters, and has good reviews for a family day out. We could get a bit of discount from our hotel so we went for it.

Both of us are now very cynical about zoos, you hear of all sorts; cruelty to animals and awful living conditions. But we were surprised with the space in the zoo today. All the animals seemed happy to be there, the kangaroos and lemurs allowed you to get close up, the kuala bears hung out in the trees, smelly and cute, and we saw a few rhinos and giraffes too. There was a show in the croccoseum (ha ha) where the crocodile Graham (odd choice of name for a crocodile, surely Curley the Croc is better. If Andy and I ran a zoo there would be alliteration all over the place).

Again – trained wild animals not my favourite thing to watch.. but it was a good show as this guy was just trying to kill Dave the zoo keeper (not his real name).

After we had our fill of the kuala bears, we drove back to the airport. On the way we stopped off at the Glasshouse Mountains. Wowee, stunning!

Our flight was scheduled for 7.30pm but guess what… delayed until 11.15! We were annoyed for our hosts in Melbourne who would now have to wake up at 3am to let us in. But, such is the way when flying with budget airlines in Australia!