Brisbane at LAST!

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Better day today, there are still strong wind gusts and scrawls of rain but nothing like yesterday. So we headed to the airport with a fair degree of confidence.

BEST LITTLE AIRPORT IN THE WORLD

We got there nice and early so had plenty of time to have a look around our airport – we reckon it reflects Wellington perfectly. A larger than life Gollum doing a bit of fishing, a couple of trolls doing some duty free shopping and when we wandered through to international departures we found ourselves inside a giant pumpkin! To be fair the architecture of the new International Terminal is a bit controversial, but I think it’s awesome (Jeanette not so much).

Bit of a wrap to Virgin Airlines as well, obviously the last couple of days have been pretty messy and really frustrating, but the communication from Virgin was great and in the end they looked after us as well as they could under the circumstances. They’re a low cost airline so no frills but the ground and flight crew were really pleasant and accommodating.

WE’RE OFF

The flight itself we surprisingly well, we were expecting plenty of turbulence as we climbed out of Wellington (it was still a pretty crappy day) but in fact apart from a few small bumps it was ‘plain sailing’. The bumpiest part of the journey was actually when we flew in over the Gold Coast. The flight was an extra one put on to clear the backlog we think and would have been a third full at best.

We breezed through customs and Don and Sue were there to meet us – Wahoo what a mission but we’re here at last!!

Our hosts have been doing plenty of homework for our visit and have lined up an awesome week for us – starting tomorrow with Whale Watching in Moreton Bay (just out from Brisbane I think). Also on the ‘optional’ list are: XXXX Ale House Brewery Tour (actually that one’s a definite), Wheel of Brisbane (like London Eye - but in Brisbane), South Bank, Brisbane River Cat Cruise, Mt Coot-tha, Bee Gee Walk Redcliffe, Mt Tamborine Rain Forest Sky Walk, Australia Zoo, Ettomogah Pub, Sunshine Coast Hinterland PLUS of course State of Origin 2. It’d be fair to say there’s quite a bit to do in and around Brisbane – so we’ll be making up for lost time, seeing as much as we can and having plenty of laughs along the way!

Looking forward to updating our Whale Watching experience in tomorrow Blog...

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Photos

Gollum
The famous Lord of the Rings character bagging himself a nice rainbow trout.

trolls go shopping
Not the usual trolls you'd expect to see shopping at a Mall near you!

International Terminal
Controversial maybe. Totally unique and totally awesome - for sure!