Last day in Perth

Well,put it down to travelling too far in too short a space of time, but we really stuffed up last night. After sitting in the airport for 2 hours, we finally went to check in about 11pm and they told us we were a day early. Couldn’t believe it. Both of us had checked the flight times but neither had noticed the day was wrong. We had it in our heads that we were travelling home to NZ late on Sunday night. Wrong! We’d handed in our rental car so went to get it back and discovered that we’d handed it in a day early too, so somewhere along the line we’d gone astray.

So another day in Perth. We tried to change tickets and go to Brisbane seeing as we were ready, but weren’t allowed.

Today was sunnier and warmer. We spent a couple of hours in the local art galleries, which was great. We have nothing like that variety in our small town. Saw some amazing pieces of work and a lot of contemporary aboriginal art, as well as a very odd movie in PICA. Anyone living in Perth, go upstairs in PICA and watch Marco’s movie. I still can’t work out whether it was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but it will stay with you. Lol.

King’s Park was inviting in the sun and although we had several downpours, it didn’t seem to stop people from sailing and jet skiing. There were loads of people in King’s Park. We took in the day time view over the city and climbed the DNA tower, modelled on the helix of DNA.

We took the Fremantle road to see if we could tour the submarine featured earlier, at the Maritime museum, but the tour was full. The E-shed markets were on, but there were a waste of time – all imported Asian trinkets. It’s a shame they don’t do a local craft market.

As the sun had come out, we went back to Cottesloe Beach to take a look. There were kids as young as 8 on surfboards or boogy boards, as well as adults. We travelled north for a look at Hillary’s harbour and wathced the sun go down, and then went as far as the Marmion highway goes before turning round and finding dinner at Joondalup.

The signposts are strange here. One minute the road is numbered, the next it has a name and if you didn’t know it had a name you start to wonder if you’re on the wrong road. I have no sense of direction, but Dave is usually pretty good. However, several times we ended up on the right road going in the wrong direction, or turned off because the directions had vanished when we were on the right road all the time. We are just getting used to it after several days.

Now we are back at the airport and this time we are going to Brisbane.

Random Photos again

This was coffee and cake at Rockingham.

A large flock of galas at at Point Kennedy in the newish housing estate.

This is the lookout at Bunbury. Quite high and very windy. It is on a hill just down the road from our Resort stay. There are some great views from the top of it.

This is a very yukky beach at Busselton which is normally renown for its beautiful beaches. There had and still was a huge swell which had made the beach this way so all was forgiven for the disgrace it presented to us. The pier in the back ground is 1.8 kms long and at the end is an underwater viewing room to see the fish. It was closed due to the bad weather. there is also good diving and snorkeling under the pier.

This is the beach at Warnboro Sound. Very long and good for dogs and motor bikes.GumNuts
Dr Suess would be proud. These grass trees are everywhere.
Waiting for the train.

Perth from the gardens at night.
Kangaroos in traffic.

Day 9

No rain this morning, but it was very windy. We went to the top of the Bunbury Lighthouse and nearly got blown off. Bunbury is a nice little town with beaches, a marina and a dophin discovery centre where dolphins usually come in each day. It has a reasonable town centre with most things, a lovely cafe strip by the beach and a popualtion of about 50,000. Looked good to us, but again it was a shame not to see it in nice weather.We decided to drive to Busselton, where Dave had once applied for a job. Stopped off in Dalyellup because some people on a pommy website live there. We were really taken with it. It's beautifully laid out, with houses of all price ranges. I love the fact that they've left bits of forest in between the houses, and the houses have to have double garages which means they don't appear so crammed in. There's a nice beach, although I hadn't realised there is a high sand dune area. The display homes weren't open so we just drove around the streets. There's an attractive lake in the middle of the town and a small shopping centre but it's only about 10 minutes from Bunbury and 20 from Bussleton. We hadn't realised there are a couple of mines within about 30 minutes drive which is where some of the people work.
On to Bussleton, where it was blowing a gale, which meant that the underwater observatory at the end of the pier was closed. the pier is about 1km long and you can fish, dive and snorkel around it. there's an old fashioned amusement park and cafes and a couple of art galleries. We saw a flock of cockatoos on a playing field, so Dave made a nuisance of himself with them.

On the way back up north we took a different route, through Brunswick junction and met some ex-pat Poms who have set up a woodturning studio and produce some beautiful furniture. We drove through dairy country up to Armadale, Kelmscott etc in the South East of Perth and then as we had time, we drove through the Swan Valley. It's really pretty through here and we wished we had more time to explore, but it was getting dark and we are on the plane back to Brisbane tonight. We found our way to King's Park and drove through in the dark. The lights are beautiful at night from this high vantage point and plenty of other people had the same idea, despite the frequent downpours of rain.

We headed back into Perth city, parked the car and spent an hour wandering the streets. Of course, most of the shops were closed and there didn't seem to be that many people about but the cafes, restaurants and bars were full. We saw one guy settling down in a doorway with a sleeping bag, but there didn't seem to be any trouble about. After several days we are just getting used to finding our way about Perth, and managed to take a different route to the airport without getting lost.

Just one more day to go in sunny Brisbane. Nothing more to do but explore the city and hug koalas.

Day 8 south we go

Woke to a miserable day, raining with thunder storms threatened. The sea had calmed a bit and I can now see that on a nice day the north beaches must be nice to swim in - the surfers were having a hard time catching a wave in the morning - but it was not the inviting turquoise sea and sun drenched sand you associate with Perth. It's a shame we haven't seen that.

We drove south to Rockingham and had a look round there. The kwinana oil refinery is a bit of a blot on the landscape, but by the time you get to Rockingham the beaches are nice and the place looks fine. Shoalwater bay is lovely! You could spend a long time exploring penguin island and the surrounds by boat or kayak.(Sorry no photos of Shoalwater bay)

We drove on to Warnbro and Port Kennedy. There are some lovely estates and most of the streets look OK, but some are less cared for than others. The St Michel estates look nice, although quite a way back from the beach. The beach is perhaps not as nice as I thought, but again it was a horrible day so hard to judge.

We looked at a couple of art galleries on the way down and deviated from the road to visit a winery at Cape Bouvard, close to Australind. It is beautiful bush out there, it would be a lovely place for a B & B. We had some not very nice wine served by a rather unhappy lady, who told us kangaroos were vermin that knock down fences and green parakeets should be popped off because they destroy grapes and dig up the lawn. She may be right, but we didn't think it was very good customer service when talking to tourists.Down by the estuary, we saw some Thrombocites which are living organisms that grow.

Just outside Australind, we drove along a coastal road with mostly small farms and saw masses of kangaroos grazing in paddocks near the road. In one paddock we counted about 60. Obviously these people didn't mind them, because they had a watch for kangaroos sign on their driveway, but I can see that if you had stock they could be a nuisance. Sixty kangaroos could eat a lot of grass. To us they are just fascinating. We got lots of video footage of them feeding, scratching and a couple fighting.We stayed the night in Bunbury at the Lighthouse Resort - very good rooms with views over the city and the sea for a very reasonable fee. Finally we had a serious lightning storm and I slept right through it.

Day 7 Perth

Today we went on a cruise from Perth to Fremantle. This is a view of Perth as we were leaving. It wasn't much of a day - it felt about 14, but the weather man just said it was 10, so that's unusually cold for Perth. Tomorrow is supposed to be 19 with possible thunderstorms.
Fremantle is very cosmopolitan. There are cafes where you can eat any sort of food you like (Italian, Indian, Turkish, Chinese, Lebanese), the genuine article, not an Australianised version. It's a nice town and we had a walk around and found this didgeridoo shop. You can have free lessons!



This was a maritime museum, featuring submarine that you can walk through, and a whole lot of stuff people have found on ship wrecks.
We drove to Perth (getting used to this now), parked in a parking building for $15 for the whole day. Perth is a beautiful town. It's clean and pretty and easy to walk around. You feel very safe and relaxed. We did a little shopping before going to "Freo" on the ferry.
Park by the old courthouse.
The bell tower. Awesome, no? And yes, it does have a bell that goes off to mark the hour.

Sculptures in the city.
Our motel with North Beach beyond.
Perth City from Riverside Drive.


Lovely friendly city. It seemed everybody was having a sale on something. Tomorrow we're going to go south for a look at the southern coastal suburbs. We'll probably stay in Mandurah.

Day 6

We had used up all our perishable food from the camper, except for a couple of oranges picked on the side of the road in Mary Valley. Dave thought there wouldn't be a problem taking them interstate so shoved them in the luggage. But as we landed in Perth, there was someone asking us to give up any fruit or nuts(AU$2000 fine), so we confessed that we had some in a suitcase. After the plane was empty she brought her sniffer dog (a beagle (girl)) in to the terminal and went round bags. She came over to us and we thought the fruit was in Dave's case but it turned out to be in mine and the dog plunged her nose in and started inhaling noisily. Wish I'd thought to get the camera out. We might get a photo of her in action on the way back.

Well, we arrived at the accommodation we had booked to find that it was not at all of the standard it appeared on the website and they had booked us into a twin room, rather than a double. Dave was in no frame to accept that, so we got a refund and booked out with no idea of where the accommodation was. So the first lesson on doing a reccy is that you should print out a map of the suburbs that interest you and mark a couple of houses you like from the real estate sites, so you can check how the areas measure up. The second lesson is that you should have a plan B, or take an accomodation guide. Eventually, (1.30am)(tired and grumpy and lagged) we found a hotel open on City Beach and booked in. In the light of day there were other options, but at night the street lighting out of the city is quite poor and it's hard to find your way around if you don't know where you're going. We were surprised at how little traffic there was around between 11pm and 1.30am. That was a bonus as doing a u turn on a major road was becoming a habit.

In the light of day, Perth is neat and clean. The parks look cared for and the suburbs are trimmed and paved. The beaches are here. In the north they are mostly surf beaches and in the evenings from City beach to North beach the water is packed with surfers and the beach walkways are busy with walkers, joggers and skateboarders from about 4pm.
yeah standing in the Indian ocean. Its not as warm as I expected. But maybe its that I am getting old and am starting to feel it more.Nice Expensive housing. Lots around the 700,000 - 1,000,000 mark.
We went up to Quinn's Rocks looked around that area and Clarkson, Merriwa. All very nice, but the thing I liked about Brisbane is that they only seem to clear what bush they need for the new subdivisions and leave tracts of bush around, which means you still get the birds and it breaks up the new look. In Perth, the new subdivisions seem to be pretty much leveled. We dropped into Mindarie to have a look at the show homes. A nice way to spend an afternoon if you have a spare million.

Dave had a job interview in Joondalup (june-dar-lup), so we went to Joondalup shopping centre for lunch. It's massive with new stages planned for later this year. We're starting to find our way round, after getting on to the motorway in the wrong direction a couple of times. The traffic's not too bad if it's not rush hour.

Today we're looking around a bit more and hopefully doing a cruise on the river later and looking round the city and King's Park.The end of another beaut day. In Perth you can get home and have dinner and wine every night and watch the sun set in the west. You cant do that in Brisbane.

So far, doing comparisons, I think I'd like to "move Hervey Bay and its beaches", to within 30 minutes of either Brisbane or Perth. HB's beaches and also those of Redcliffe/Scarborough in Brisbane, are calm and get deep slowly so are ideal for kids to use kayaks, paddle on surf boards, learn to sailboats etc and jet ski. The surf beaches may be more exciting but also more dangerous and there is less a child can do safely. Still it's all very pretty here and we'll hopefully post some more photos of the city tonight.

More Random Photos

Please check all posts and reply to any questions we have.

The pool at the camp ground in Hervey Bay.
Liquid morning tea. Heather had XXXX Gold, Dad had Stella
A resort on the beach at Hervey BayTorquay Beach. Warm water . Totally swimable.
The Urangan Bowling Club. Huge and copletely covered. Bowls in all weathers.
Flowers

Day 5 -Tin Can Bay

The fancy painted loos at Rainbow beach. The loos in Oz are very clean and tidy, so far, much better than NZ.
Fishing in the Coral Sea at Rainbow beach

More shifting sand at Rainbow beach
The lake in the gardens
If you look carefully you will see the head of a turtle in the water. We saw about 6 of them all coming towards us, for a feed I suppose.

Another early night and an early start (5am). Don’t know why we cant sleep late. Too much to do I suppose.

Breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese and ham (trying to use up the rest of our food) and then off to see the reason we came here in the first place - the dolphins.

We waled the 1k walk down to the boat ramp and there already was a crowd and the lady was raving about the dolphins and all their history.

It started when one dolphin was attacked by a shark and found badly mauled near the boat ramp. It was patched up and fed while it stayed in shallow waters until it was better. Once it was well, it swam off but paid daily visits and brought others with it. Mystique is the only one that will accept fish from anyone. A young dolphin they call Harmony, comes in but is just learning to trust enough to take fish from one of the wardens, while its mother hangs about in the bay and waits till it’s over. The scarring on them is through dolphin fights and there are sharks in the bay that rough them up a bit.

I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of encouraging dolphins to hand feed until she told us that it is only about 10% of what they eat during the day, and if they come back on the same day they don’t get fed again, so they never become dependent.

Standing in line with all the other tourists waiting to feed the dolphins.

It was pretty cool to get so close to them. You can swim out to meet them if you like, but after hearing about the Tiger Sharks in the bay, I don’t think I’d be a starter. I like the fact that they only charge a gold coin donation, as some of the resorts charge a fortune.

The camping ground.

Tin Can Bay is quite a pretty place. You can hire a boat or do dolphin charters, or hire a houseboat and take off for a couple of days. But I’m guessing that most people come initially for the dolphins.

We had coffee at Barnacles cafe and now we’re off to Brisbane. When we come back from Perth we have 12 hours in Brisbane before our flight home, so have decided to hire a car and be tourists that day. Today we’re making our way back and trying to take in some of the places we missed on our first day.

As we aren’t considering moving to the Sunshine coast we decided to leave it out this trip. We have to return our camper before 4pm, so just decided to skip it. It will have to wait for another trip. The Bruce highway is brilliant, mostly straight and in places you’re allowed to travel at 110kph. Makes you wonder why they bother putting Watch for kangaroo signs on it, though, as you wouldn’t have a hope of avoiding one.

We got off the m’way at North Lakes and did some leisurely shopping in their great shopping mall. Then we drove down through Murrumba Downs, then Petrie, Lawnton, Strathpine etc all of which look nice and back to drop off our camper. We had a few problems with the camper, meaning we had to stay mostly in camping grounds, but it was worth it to have the freedom to go where we wanted.

Brisbane light from the domestic terminal and all the people waiting around the departure lounge. Virgin Blue seem to do the most business because at the other end of the lounge, which goes on a long way, it is relatively empty.

Now we’re at the airport waiting to go to Perth tonight – a 5 ½ hour flight at night. Perth is 2 hours behind Brisbane, and we get there quite late, pick up a rental car and drive to our lodgings. Will let you know more tomorrow as we have internet where we are staying

Monday contd

Impressions of Hervey Bay
The Man who hates sharks has set up this shark info center.

The Hervey Bay Caravan Park is wonderful. The manager was so friendly and helpful. When she learned that we were trying to keep a blog of our journey she gave us a 24 hour wireless internet pass for $10, which meant that we could sit in our camper and sort photos, write and post it all. She also showed us the golden orb spider (about 3 inches) which spins a golden thread and wraps its babies in a gold cradle. She told us they have 4 or 5 snakes on site which eat bugs but don’t harm humans. Sadly we didn’t see them. Apparently they don’t like this cold 20 degree weather and get sleepy.

Heather on the dishes roster.

Hervey Bay Motor camp or one of them and our camper.

It was sad leaving Hervey Bay, not knowing whether we’ll be back, and having made so many imaginary friends on the internet. Hervey Bay is lovely. I didn’t find one area that I thought was awful although, like everywhere, there are some streets that aren’t that flash. Most areas are lovely. The people are friendly and there is lots to do and the weather is great, considering it’s mid-winter. I only wish we’d been tourists and had the time to do the evening champagne dolphin cruise, or go to Fraser Island.

Today we tried to film the bats hanging upside down on their trees, but they were a bit far away. We paddled at Torquay beach.

It was still early morning, so a bit cool but not skin-numbing cold. There were people fishing and pelicans sitting on the beach.

The sand squeaks under your feet and the water was not warm, but pleasant enough to swim if you weren’t a wuss like me. We visited the local art gallery – the lady was a kiwi. Lol. We kind of like Torquay and Urangan and parts of Eli Waters, but Dave still has a soft spot for Toogoom.

Something for the dog...

In the afternoon Dave went visiting job contacts, but is still a bit worried about the availablility of decent jobs and pay. Small town Queensland is not that different to small town NZ on the wage front, but there is the bonus of warm weather all year round. We have lots of thinking to do.

The female of the species "Golden Orb" is the large on and the little guy in the background is the male. She will eat him when she wants to. Her web is a beautiful golden color.

On the way out we went to Maryborough where Dave had more job contacts. I’m sure there are people who love Maryborough. It’s an historical town with a few nice buildings, but to us it was a jaded old hag that needs to lie down. One of Dave’s contacts said there is no way he’d employ him unless he lived in Maryborough, because Hervey Bay people get sick of commuting half an hour. After being there, the only thing that would induce me to work there would be the fact that I could go home to Hervey Bay at the end of the day, and Dave feels the same. It is a depressing dump.

We decided to go to Tin Can Bay for the night because a couple of dolphins come in to feed at 8am each morning. Not too far away is Rainbow Beach, where there are colourful sands caused by mineral deposits. It is a really long drive to reach this place and when you get there the friggin sand blow is miles away, whereas I thought it would be at the bottom of the beach steps. However, I didn’t research this one very well. You can hire a 4WD, or ponies, or most cool of all, you can hire a camel train, if you check what time they leave! And I tell you it is a bloody long beach and you would be glad of a camel under you.

What amazed us was how many people live in Rainbow Beach, Cooloola Cove and Tin Can Bay, which are in the middle of nowhere. There are new housing estates and industry and Cooloola Cove has a Woolworths! The are also selling house and land packages! What do these people do? Where do they work? The locals say it’s tourism but I don’t think that accounts for so much expansion.

We walked the pretty sands and the next minute a truck as big as a rubbbish truck comes roaring up the beach – still not sure what he was doing, but it was impressive. We found short cut to Tin Can Bay, arriving just before dark. The cockatoos were flying round making a racket and we have parked in what looks like a gorgeous place. Time to explore tomorrow. Lots of fruit bats here too. Millions, or should I say minions?

Feeling a bit jaded, we decided to see if we could eat out. Went to The Black Cockatoo, but it was closed for Monday, and although the owner was there he was unfriendly and unhelpful. The owner of the Kingfisher Caravan park, however, was a gem.

Monday 23 June, 2008

Thank you for the use of your computer Adam as where we are staying has wireless internet and we can do all this from the comfort of our camper. This is being written after being up for a couple of hours at 4 am. Last night we missed videoing the fruit bats that live in Hervey Bay's botanical gardens, as it was almost dark when they finally decided to move. I had ideas that I was going to catch them coming home, but although they've been making a racket since about 4am,I must've missed the return trip. It's about 6am now, just getting light and quite cold at the moment.

We'll try to get koala pictures for Kate either on Tuesday or when we come back over to Brisbane from Perth. All going well tonight we'll make our way to Tin Can Bay tonight (about one hour south) to see the dolphins in the morning, and check out the Rainbow beach, before heading down the Sunshine coast and back to Brisbane. Don't know if we'll be anywhere with internet to finish this tonight, but we'll update you as soon as we can.

Some pretty flowers

There are some amazing flowers and plants here. very tropo.

The spiders are really big. This guy was on the side of the track back up from the beach and is about 9cm including his legs.

This is a large Banyan on the Esplanade at Hervey bay. The little boy had just finished peeing on it.

Day Three

Last nite we stayed at Toogoom (tooggum). We ended up her because David was driving in the dark and this was a place that was mentioned north of Dundowran beach to stay at without being told to move on.

We made dinner and then went down to the pub. Yes, there was a restaurant/bar - Goodys on the beach. As we drove in, on the north end of Toogoom, we thought this was a tiny settlement and couldn't believe there'd be enough to sustain a bar & a cafe called The Salty Squid. In NZ a nip is 15mls, so whenever we order spirits we order a double. We went into Goodys and ordered a double whiskey and a double rum and coke and the bar maid said that would be $19.80. We nearly fell over, but as we tasted it we realised it was incredibly strong. The aussie nip, bless 'em is 30ml! So the price for a single would've been cheaper than NZ at $4.50.

Upon rising after listening to the dawn chorus and watching the sun rise,(kookaburras, rosellas, magpies - alll taking turns to sing). we walked along the beach. Like a deserted island paradise, apart from the tide being out, and enjoyed the morning sun and greeted some locals coffee-ing at the end of their garden. We walked back along Kingfisher Pde and back to the camper for brecky.
We drove around and realised this is a large booming new estate, and Dave fell in love with it. It's nice, and about 10 minutes from town but I'm not sure the older kids would enjoy the lack of entertainment.(town things but ours rarely leave the TV, playstation or computer. However, it offers cheapish housing, a safe beach and off road fun if you want it.(dirt biking for Elliot, 4wd for Dad, Jet ski for Adam and Swimming and water for all)

Today we explored Hervey Bay. It was cool this morning, but once the sun was up it was around 20 degrees (9.30am) and felt more because there was no breeze. We walked the Urangan pier which is around 860 metres long.



There were loads of people and families fishing. We met Jim (retired at 50) and his son Harry. They moved to HB four years ago from Victoria and absolutely love the all year outdoor living.
Jim has caught a 64kg shark at the end of the pier and there are a couple of gropers that weigh in at 600kg but you are not allowed to keep them, let alone get them on to the pier.

Some of the locals have good balancing skills and can swim well.


Some of Queensland is a bit behind with providing internet access, so we spent a couple of hours in HB downloading our log. Sadly, we were a bit late to ride bikes along the esplanade as we planned, but we took a drive through some suburbs.

We visited Point Vernon, as there's a cheap new estate going up, which we saw online. It didn't quite measure up to expectations, although the right hand side of the point is OK. Somehow, we hadn't realised there was rock all the way round. The houses for sale were mostly on very small sections, although there were a few larger ones available, but they seemed all crammed in and didn't appeal. A bunch of kangaroos came down to the office. Somehow I hadn't expected kangaroos on the point, but there are loads and they hop down the street in the morning.

We liked parts of Eli Waters and viewed some amazing properties at the back of Wondunna. Dave, as a builder, is gobsmacked at what you can get for your money in HB. The houses are fantastic size and quality compared to NZ.

Eventually we got sick of looking at houses and it was getting late so we went to find a camp. I'd heard that the fruit bats now live in the Botanical gardens, so chose a camp close by. While cooking dinner I could hear the din from the gardens and I thought they must stay over the gardens and we wouldn't see them, but just as it was getting dark they filled the sky, screeching and flitting over each other, and disappearing into the sunset like Dracula's children on a feeding expedition. Go Van Helsing...

Tomorrow is another day.

Random Photos

Hi guys here is a collection of photos of us and stuff.

Mummy waiting to use the loo on the plane. See she is smiling. goodness knows why!!!

This is a shot of Redcliffe from the plane (duh)

A large paddling pool at Redcliffe


Elliot. The heavy rain while driving on the Bruce Highway north

Lookout they are every where,... although we did not see any here. This is in Rothwell just north of Redcliffe.
The rain bow from Burpengary after the storm.

Guess who. This was at Scarborough Beach motor camp on the Redcliffe peninsula.

Two painters inn the morning (9am) at Deception Bay, north of Redcliffe. They are painting the Redcliffe peninsula in front of them.

If you look carefully you can see a Kookaburra in the branches.(in the middle) This was beside the road at Burpengary East.

Worrim Beach on Bribie Island. really nice surf beach.Sign says no nude sunbathing so we had to put clothes on Damn.

Redcliffe beach looking back from the pier.

Self explanitory

Pelicans at Bongaree on Bribie Island. Stopped here for a look and a coffee. A long way off the route north, but worth the diversion. (lol. Oliver)

This is how pineapples are grown. There are heaps of them on the tourist route past Oz zoo.

Day two

I am now in a much better frame of mind having the battery charged and things seem to be going better now.

Heather’s ramblings

Today we decided to chill out and do what we wanted. Dave likes to tiki tour round streets he doesn’t know, so we decided to do that and ask for directions once we got lost. From Scarborough we drove to Deception Bay. There are all these signs in the suburbs telling you that there are koalas and kangaroos for the next few kilometres. As we drove through the suburb of Rothwell I saw a couple of kangaroo heads poking above the grass on an empty grass area, but there was nowhere to stop, so we kept going.

When we first looked at Deception Bay online we thought it would be a great place to live, but later people told us it was a bit rough. When we first drove in we liked it. The waterfront is beautiful and there are good and bad areas, but there is a large permanent trailer park, and the central part is very run down with narrow streets and unkempt houses very close together. To be fair the area has everything you could want including new gym and sporting facilities, the people are friendly, but not so sure it’s a great family area. We drove through the back and got lost in a beautiful, very expensive area where houses had blocks of land in the bush and stopped to talk to some people. They told us we were in Burpengary East and that somehow we had missed a really big shopping centre yesterday, and we quite liked it there, but it’s not beachside. After that we went bush and Dave will tell you about that.

Sand angels at the pier in Redcliffe

A word about wildlife

We have seen amazing birds. These are every where and are Ibis'. They are so used to humans that they will jump up on your table and eat the

food from your plate if you are not looking. On the ground there are Ibis birds which look really exotic, with long legs and long black beaks, but they are a bloody nuisance at cafes, just like
seagulls.

There are rosellas and parakeets, galahs and other unidentifiable birds we’ve never seen. We’ve seen a number of kookaburras, although we haven’t heard them laugh yet. Today at Bongaree beach on Bribie Isalnd we saw pelicans sitting on the water - beautiful.

Despite the signs, we understand that seeing a koala in the wild is as likely as seeing a kiwi in the wild, especially from a car driving at 100k.

Although we drove all day in bush and grassland we didn’t see a single kangaroo. We were about to conclude that it was all a lie and Australia has no kangaroos, when we arrived at Gympie, and there in the middle of Gympie town, right next to the motorway, on a mown

sports ground we saw two large red roos drinking from a pond. After that we saw a family of smaller grey kangaroos in a paddock and Dave videoed them. They were just staring so he told me to scare them and without thinking I plunged into the long grass at the roadside to scare them. It worked, but I suddenly remembered I was in Australia and there could be snakes in there. Having said that, we haven’t seen one yet.

I have never seen so many pineapples. We even saw a few banana palms, but so much sugar cane it’s unbelievable. We have yet to see a cane toad, but watch this space.

So Dave will tel you about the other stuff.

On the journey north we took, the tourist side road which has been renamed "steve Irwin highway" which runs past Oz zoo. We did not stop. We did stop to climb Mt Beerburrum. Nothing to do with beer though. There is a small town there of about 20 houses and the rail goes into Brisbane 1.25 hours drive away. There was a lookout there which seemed a good idea at the time so we climbed it. The Mt is only 250m high but the walk is 700m and is steeper than 45 degrees in places. The view to die for.

The area around here is due to be flooded (for drinking water) so as we drove though here it was worth a look at a local genuine Queensland heartland town called Mary.
Some very interesting houses.

The security around here is pretty harsh on any intruders.

Beware of the chicken it said on the gate but the dogs were probably more of a worry.

here we are in the land of oz.

We left Christchurch Airport in a below zero frost at 6am. As we approached Brisbane, the Captain mentioned that Brisbane Airport was closed due to fog. The bizarre thing was that apart from the airport, Brisbane was awash with sunshine. We flew in a circling pattern for an hour, enjoying Moreton Island and the Glasshouse mountains again and again.... This gave Dave another chance for a scotch on the rocks, the second on the flight, while Heather drank all the wine (bubbly too).













Heather under the welcome sign at brizy airport

Romped through customs and border patrol. Heather was delayed as her destination in

Queensland was Brisbane but no address. This caused a laugh as Davids destination was

”mobile camper" which worked a treat. David ran to help Heather with details of the camper

etc... (thats another story)

It was about 23 degrees when we arrived and our jeans were too much. We got a taxi to pick up our camper – later found out he’d robbed us by going the long way round. The guy at the hire company gave us directions to a supermarket. We still haven’t found it.

As we’re coming back through in a few days, and again before we fly home we decided to leave exploring Brisbane until then and headed north. We found our way to the motorway and headed to the Redcliffe peninsula as this is one area we like the look of. For those looking to move it looks a lovely area for families with nice beaches and parks and some really ritzy houses on the waterfront. The natives were friendly, except on the road. They have no patience with a large camper dawdling in front of them and we sparked some road rage. We had a paddle in the sea, Dave couldn’t resist making a sand angel in a newly graded beach. We also talked to a local photographer who had moved from South Africa. Kate street,Redcliffe

We headed out and Heather wanted to explore some of the nearby suburbs. We called in to a display home area in Halpine Lake and then the weather packed in and we had an impressive thunderstorm that lasted about 20 minutes. We tried to call in to North Lakes shopping centre but missed the turn and ended up on the motorway heading north. Once the torrential rain eased we decided to explore some of the suburbs. The annoying thing here is that there are signs telling you to turn right for the town centre, but then you drive and eventually reach the next suburb having never seen the town centre. We did that a few times, through some pretty country around Burpengary (never found the centre) and Narangba (never found the lake).

Stopped to get groceries and discovered the battery was flat so we had no fridge, no lights or anything unless we stayed in a motor camp which we hadn’t planned on. So we drove back to Redcliffe/Scarborough and got the last spot for the night. All is working well now an hopfully will be in the morning or I am going to get relly pisst off.

So now we're on the move again

Hi there folks . .
. . who I have not yet had the privilege of meeting.
We are embarking on our first overseas trip in 20 years. The last time-move, was when we went to Vanuatu for two weeks.
But thats another story.

This time we have decided to enter into a "reconnaissance mission" to explore, . .
" the final frontier".

AUSTRALIA.








Land of hope and glory, and all that other shit.

But we are on our way, and if you are at all interested, (and we hope your are), then this is where you will need to come.

Brisbane bound we are, and we will be there on Friday, 20 June @ 0705 just in time to have latte and croissants.

Chow for now...