We arrived in Brisbane the last weekend in November. Our first port of call was Carmel and Paraic's house in the suburb of Birkdale. They very kindly put us up. After alot of camping a real bed and a few home comforts were bliss!
The first afternoon we arrived they were having a BBQ with a group of friends so we settled in fairly quickly, glad of the social interaction! We strolled up to Wellington Point with Carmel that evening and caught a beautiful sunset. They live about an hour from the city centre but it was great for us to visit a few things on the outskirts before heading into the CBD a few days later.
I have to admit we became a little lazy having such a comfortable place to stay and Carmel's cooking meant I had to pull J away. Me too if I'm to be really honest. She was hostess of the mostess!
At this point the deadline for buying and posting Christmas presents was looming so we did some much needed shopping and wrapping the next day much to Jim's delight . It was strange doing all that kind of thing when the sun is shining, I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing Christmas decorations up when the sun is shining, and shopping in air-conditioned shopping centres for presents - bizarre.
We ventured back down the freeway one of the days to a water park. The weather had been stifling so we couldn't think of a better way to spend our day. It was great, I think the last time I had been to one of them was when I was fifteen. We were like two big kids for the day lining up for every single ride. It was great fun.
Another day we headed in towards the city to a spot called Lone Pines Koala Sanctuary. We hadn't seen any native wildlife yet, bar some roadkill. We had even been driving in fear of hitting a 'roo! Koala Pines was like the best zoo ever! We strolled around and saw all the weird and wonderful wildlife Australia has to offer. Wombats, koalas, kangaroo's, dingoes, crocodiles, lorikeets and more. The fact they are all so different to what we know make them so much more interesting to visit and watch. I got the opportunity to hold a koala, they are just as soft and cuddly as you imagine. I wanted to squeeze it but was mindful of the fact it's very large claw were gripping my skin! Australia has a huge variety of parrots, they are probably the one animal we've come across the most. We left Lone Pines to the goodbyes being squawked by the parrots near the exit, it was hilarious. Before heading home that evening we drove up Mt Cootha to a lookout point over the city which was fantastic.
That week amongst other things we visited the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium where we watched a 40 minute programme called 'Passport to the Universe', it was brilliant. It was in a dome shaped room, so when we lay back in our chairs the whole universe enveloped us! We also checked out Queen St Mall in the city, the main pedestrianised street, it was all very Christmassy yet roasting hot!
We also stayed with Dane (a native Queenslander, who James met in Copenhagen a few years ago) in Red Hills near the city centre. Our sight-seeing with him consisted mainly of the pub variety. Great guy, and it was nice to meet Aussies for a change!
We headed back out to Carmel and Paraic's again for a tropical themed house-warming with a bunch of paddies before finally extracting ourselves from their lovely home and hitting the road again.
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