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So, over two weeks since our last blog for computer reasons really, so bit of catching up to do. Since our last blog we've been through 4 days each in Brisbane, Surfer's Paradise and Byron Bay and also arrived in Sydney for a few days, but we'll leave Sydney for the next blog.
We had to spend our first full day in Brisbane searching for a new bag for Chris as it had been broken on one side in the Uluru trip by that prat of a tour guide, and then the second one had gone in Noosa. So that wasn't the most exciting day but Claire didn't mind wandering round shops all morning! On our second day we decided to check out the Museum of Queensland in Brisbane. It was free in which was very welcome after the costs so far on the east coast, and it was pretty interesting. It focused largely on the variety of wildlife in Queensland. They had a display of stuffed animals from all over Australia too which was quite impressive, and exhibitions about the threatened species along the reef and coast. There was also a small display about Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, and a mass of cabinets containing all sorts of insects from the country, particularly spiders which greatly appealed to Claire, who finally got to see what a redback (the venomous wee b***** that had infiltrated our tent in the outback) looks like.
We spent the next morning at Brisbane's City Beach, a man-made pool and beach in the middle of a park in the city. Really weird sunbathing on a beach across the river from a pretty big CBD. After lunch we hopped on a bus to head into the hills around the city, to the top of the Botanical Gardens there to see the views, which were pretty spectacular. We could see as far as the islands off the coast and the whole of Brisbane it was so clear. At the bottom of the gardens was an observatory, and as the buses were so infrequent, we decided to walk down to try to get into one of the planetarium shows. The walk was steep, it was warm, and there was no footpath to speak of, just a dirt path by the side of the winding road, and not very enjoyable in flip flops! And we missed the last show of the day by 7 minutes, so it wasn't great! Ah well.
We decided to leave the next morning as we hadn't really anymore interest in Brisbane. It's a nice city, but really there's nothing there that makes it stand out, though it seems like a pretty cool place to live. Our next destination was to be Surfer's Paradise which has theme parks, water parks, a lovely beach and it was Claire's birthday that weekend so we thought it'd be a good place to have some fun for a few days in the parks.
We found a pretty cool place to stay which was a hostel but a little different. The room we had was part of an apartment with a bathroom, living room, kitchen and one other room. Two of the nights there was another couple in the other room, two nights just us with an apartment to ourselves so it was pretty great having our own kitchen and space after so many cramped, confined, busy cooking nights. On the first day we went to Warner Bros. MovieWorld theme park, and well, it was no Florida! It was pretty small first of all, the main roller-coaster was closed for maintenance, and the first thing we went to see was the Hollywood Stunt Drivers, and they rolled the cars and had to stop the show early! There were 4 or 5 good rides, and everything was just a little bit too cheesy or tacky!
Next day was Claire's birthday, and we went for pancakes at breakfast which was awesome and a great preparation for a day at the Wet'n'Wild waterpark. It was really good fun, not a great day for sunshine so it was a bit cold at times, but the slides were good and we had a laugh racing down them, Claire winning most and me taking it pretty badly! Not a good loser... We went out for dinner that night to the Hard Rock Cafe, which is always a pretty cool feed and then went on out to see what was happening on a Saturday night in Surfer's. It wasn't what we expected, it was basically a street full of bars with boozed up idiots spilling onto the street and it wasn't even 10 o'clock. Wasn't what we were hoping for, just a load of 18-19 year olds who couldn't handle their drink. Think Shaftesbury Square at closing time on a Saturday, except that's what it's like all night. So we left Surfer's not really wanting to go back. It was a high rise building, commercialised, overcrowded holiday resort basically and just wasn't what we've been enjoying about the east coast, but fine if that's what you're after from it. We weren't.
So it was on to Byron Bay last Monday and our second last stop in Australia. The weather has been changing over the last week or two and when we got into Byron Bay it was time for jumpers and sheltering from heavy rain on the first night. So we went to the cinema to hide from the rain and saw The Boat that Rocked which was very funny. Cinemas are bloody expensive over here though, $15 each for our ticket! The weather picked up later on in the week so we spent a few days enjoying the beach, which was really nice down there, full of people playing guitars, having kickabouts, surfing, body boarding, and just a really coll place to relax for a few days. There is a small National Park area at the southern end of the beach at Cape Byron which we took a walk around on our last day. It was a really nice forest area which led up to the Byron Bay Lighthouse with some pretty amazing views and a great place to spot dolphins and whales in the bay. We were a few weeks too early for the migrating whales, and unfortunately didn't see any dolphins but others had earlier that morning so that was a pretty cool place. The Cape also has the most easterly point of the Australian mainland, so we wandered down there and got our tourist photos!
Byron is a really nice place, with that old hippy vibe still pretty evident in the bars and cafes and you can just picture the sunny days when they used to hang around with their pack of smokes and little bump of cocaine! It was also probably the first place we've been with no McDonald's or KFC! They really are everywhere in Australia! Would love to go back to Byron sometime with a bit more money to spend and the sun shining all the time.
On Friday we left Byron for our last bus journey in Oz, a 13 hour overnight epic right into Sydney, which was missing out a big part of the coast but time is running out and Sydney is one we're really looking forward to.
It's not been a very busy two weeks or so, at least not compared to our first 7-8 weeks away which have been none stop but it's been good in giving us time to have some lie ins, and let the budget breath a wee bit! It's gonna take a bit of a hit over the next week or so as we gather up some warm clothes for New Zealand. Hopefully the next blog won't be as far away but we're loving Sydney so it certainly won't be until we leave here, we've loads we want to do here.
It's now just under 3 months until we're home, which means we're about halfway through, and it has flown in so far so we've obviously been enjoying it! Don't want it to end!
Hope you're all well and as it gets warmer for you lot over the next month, spare a thought for us as it gets colder and colder in NZ! It'll awful all that skiing and snowboarding! Haha!
Take care guys.
Love Claire and Chris xx
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