Brisbane: Day Fifty (8 December)

Our last day in Brisbane and we have a very early start tomorrow so we made the most of exploring this beautiful city.

Can you see the Australia Zoo water bottle in the picture on the right? Green and yellow are the team colours for Australian cricketers and rugby players.

I also got to enjoy a chocolate milkshake :-).

Barnaby

Australia Zoo: Day Forty-Nine - Morning (7 December)

We went on another excursion today to Australia Zoo. It's huge so we took the shuttle bus round the edges first and saw the elephants feeding.

Then we went to the show in the Crocoseum. It wasn't just about crocodiles, although it did feature Mossman (a great, big Saltie) being fed and jumping around, which was quite scary.

But the show was mainly about conservation and how to be safe around animals.

Barnaby

Brisbane: Day Forty-Eight (6 December)

Another early start as today was the date for our free City Sights morning tour, including a visit to Queensland's oldest residence - Newstead House. After lunch on the South Bank, we had a relaxing afternoon on our hotel balcony.

Barnaby

Byron Bay: Day Forty-Seven (5 December)

We had to get up early this morning as we were going on a tour to Byron Bay, just over the border in New South Wales. We travelled in a minibus similar to the one that took us around Kakadu.

The weather was very different though. We drove through a massive rainstorm and, as you can see from the picture, it remained overcast and damp all day. The lighthouse at Byron Bay marks the most Easterly point in Australia.

A few brave people were swimming and surfing but we did the British thing when at the seaside and had an icecream.

Barnaby

Brisbane: Day Forty-Six (4 December)

Today we explored more of Brisbane on foot including visiting the Goodwill Bridge and the City Botanic Gardens.

I can't believe it is only twenty days until Christmas Eve. Christmas in the summertime feels very strange but there were still lots of decorations in Brisbane.

We even found a special box to send our postcards from.

Barnaby

Brisbane: Day Forty-Five - Evening (3 December)

The CityCat Ferry was included in the price of our hop on/hop off bus ticket so we got on that after we had been to the end of the bus line.

First we went upriver towards Brisbane University and then back down to Bulimba, which was the stop for Oxford Street. (Yes, there is an Oxford Street in Brisbane. It's quite a popular road name in Australia - there's one in Sydney too). We had dinner in a Thai restaurant and then got the night ferry back to the South Bank. We walked along the Boardwalk and along a flower scented path back to our hotel. Brisbane is really pretty by night as well.

Barnaby

Brisbane: Day Forty-Five - Morning (3 December)

Today we explored Brisbane on a hop on/hop off bus. First stop was the City Lookout with more fabulous views. We also saw Story Bridge (Brisbane's equivalent of Sydney's Harbour Bridge and designed by the same person) and visited the little Chinatown.

Then we got off at Anzac Square, where there is a flame of eternal remembrance for the Australian soldiers killed, to explore St Andrews church and St John's Cathedral, the oldest church in Brisbane. We discovered a service of Holy Communion was about to take place in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit so we stayed for that and then got back on the bus. This time we took it all the way to Mount Coot-tha Lookout where the views were even more spectacular.

Barnaby

Whitsundays: Day Forty-Four (2 December)

We took the ferry to Hamilton Island, which is much larger and more developed than South Molle. It even has its own airport and we flew from there to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. It turned out to be a longer walk to our apartment hotel than we thought but when we got there it was very nice, with wonderful views.

Barnaby

Townsville: Day Thirty-Seven (25 November)

Our local Mothers' Union in Tunbridge Wells has been writing to a branch in Mundingburra, which is a suburb of Townsville, for years so today we went to their church. They made us very welcome and invited us to 'morning tea' after the service, which was lovely.

Two members of the congregation gave us a lift back into Townsville for our final afternoon. We explored the markets and then walked back along the Strand and relaxed at the Rockpool for a couple of hours.

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Eight (16 November)

Another quiet day in Cairns today sorting out travel plans so I thought I'd show you some photos from our visit to Koala Gardens yesterday.

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Seven - Afternoon (15 November)

We caught the sky rail back to Cairns. It goes right over the rainforest and we stopped and had a ranger walk on the way. The ranger showed us some of the rainforest food that people can survive on, including a witchity grub, which is a bit like a fat white worm. I decided my ice cream was enough to keep me going until we had fish and chips for dinner at Miss Berry’s.

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Seven - Morning (15 November)

Out on a trip today! We took the steam train to Kuranda, a village in the mountains above Cairns. The line was built by a Mr Robb and takes one and a half hours. On the way the train slows down so people can take photos of Stoney Creek Falls and Barron Falls.

After lunch, we visited Koala Gardens, which is a small wildlife park with wombats and wallabies as well as koalas (and freshwater crocodiles, lizards and a turtle though I wasn’t so keen on seeing those). When we got there the koalas and wombats were asleep (they do that a lot) so we had an ice cream before going back. They were very cute, especially the 10 month old baby who was climbing everywhere just like a human toddler.

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Six (14 November)

It is Schoolies Week in Australia next week when all the Year Twelves go away to celebrate finishing school. (They have their summer holidays in December and January because they are on the opposite side of the world to us and all the seasons are opposite too). This made our travelling plans more difficult because lots of places were full up but we got there in the end

We celebrated with another delicious ice cream .

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Four (12 November)

We had a lie in after all our early mornings in Kakadu. It was lovely to be in a home not a hotel and Miss Berry looked after us really well. Her house is some way from the centre of Cairns so we took a bus in and sent emails from an internet café (which arrived this time – hurrah).

We also had a yummy chocolate milkshake before heading back to Miss Berry’s and saving all the photos we’d taken since the start of our trip in South Africa.

Barnaby

Cairns: Day Twenty-Three (11 November)

Remembrance Day and because it is a short flight from Darwin to Cairns we were able to go to a service at 11am. Afterwards Miss Berry drove us to Port Douglas to see the beautiful four mile beach and walk around the markets.

We had lunch on the seafront and then drove backs to Cairns for a family BBQ at Miss Berry’s, which was lots of fun.

Cairns is in the tropics and is on the edge of the rainforest and it did (rain) just as the BBQ was starting so we all had to move inside. The food was more like an English BBQ too:-).

Barnaby