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OK so we've in Brisbane just over a week and have done quite a lot so far so here is a glimpse of what we've been up to.
Moved apartments! We'd booked ourselves into the Spring Hill Garden Apartments for 2 weeks as these came highly recommended by people on the British Expats website, however to put it bluntly they were grim. They were worn out, filthy dirty, stains everywhere and towards the end of our stay, chucking out yellow water and had a kitchen infested with ants. It wasn't helped by the fact that the on-site managers were totally and utterly useless, rude and just downright "don't give a toss" kind of people. There was response when we told them our taps were giving out bright yellow water was "your apartment is nothing special" and "i don't see your problem", and then when we told them we had ants all over the kitchen we got the response of "hmmm, thats Queensland wildlife". So, stuff them, enough was enough so after just 1 week we left and have moved into a much better apartment right in the CBD, The Rendezvous Hotel. Not ideal having to move like that but we just couldn't take it anymore as it was ruining our time here and making us miserable.
And now on to a lighter note.
So we stepped out in our thongs (oo-er) which are flip flops down here and visited South Bank first. This is an area of the city centre which is parkland that also has a full on sandy beach and swimming lagoon for everyone to use, for free! Really cool place to walk around and makes you realize your in a different country seeing all that in a city centre. After we had done this we took in the Brisbane city Botanical Gardens for a look around, and just happened to come across the annual Green Fest Festival which was going on at the same time. This was all about looking after the environment etc and had lots of stalls, food, bands playing which was cool and again was totally free!!
We also went to Roma Street Parkland which is another botanic/park area in the citry centre. We ended up here on a Monday which happened to be a public holiday for the Queens Birthday (how come we didn't have this in the UK?) and really surprised us because it wasn't busy at all so we ended up having a real good day. We also saw some mahoosive spiders hanging from the trees there which gave us both a case of the chilly-willies as they look like they could kick the crap out of you if they tried! It was here we came across out first Aussie BBQ's going on in the park. WOW they really put every other BBQ to shame LOL, and again we have to say it, they were free as well!!
Also, every Wednesday in the CBD they have a Farmers Market which we caught a glimpse of the first day we were here, but this week we went there properly. Oh they had some good stuff there, loads of proper fresh fruit, local meat, nuts, honey etc all of which was from local farmers who were more than happy to let us have free samples of everything. And better still, loads of the food was gluten free so Em could join in too, especially with one certain stall called Farmer Dave. Our mate Dave has an amazing sausage!!! LOL!!! What we mean by that is that Farmer Dave deals in local lamb so has some awesome lamb sausages which you can buy on a stick, and as they were gluten free Em got to try them. WOW they were good so we did the decent thing and bought a whole pack of them which we took to Roma Street Parklands the next day and cooked them up on the free BBQ's there.
Mt Coot-tha Lookout is the highest point in Brisbane so gives great views over the whole area, so we took one of the local buses there the other day to have a look. The view from the top was tremendous and we could see the entire Brisbane area all the way to Moreton Bay which is the coast. We also got talking to an old sweet couple of expats who were at the lookout as well which was nice. After this we went to Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens which was the best gardens we have been to yet. Now I know your thinking "crikey they go to a lot of gardens and parks, shouldn't they be doing something more extreme??" Well yes you're right but we were only making use of the weather, and besides we did do something proper extreme one of the days by visiting the Queensland Camping and Caravan Show! YEAH BABY!! WOOHOO!!! Moving on....it was only for informational purposes really...
Today, Saturday we took the CityCat which is the local ferry which runs down the Brisbane River as part of the local public transport, to a suburb called New Farm. Em had found out about a local bakery here which specializes in Gluten Free items so we had to take a look, and my word it was worth it! Over 75% of the bakery is gluten free so there was just so much choice, so we stayed for lunch and dessert, but will definitely go back before we leave Brisbane as the food was amazing! After this we had a look around the local market before lounging around in the park in the sun, which is when Andy also got bitten by some ants
Thats it for now. We are still waiting for our camper to be finished so we have another week in Brisbane yet. Tomorrow we are going to do what Em has been looking forward to since we started looking at Oz, and thats to go and visit Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where Em will be able to finally hug one of the furry little Koala's. Bet she doesn't sleep a wink tonight as its like Christmas Eve for her now
Hope everyone is doing well.
Andy & Em
xx
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