Brisvegas baaaaby!!

---

---

We had a bit of ground to make up so it was a long drive that took us into rainy Brisbane – when we arrived we were greeted by enormous downpours!! As we passed a sign for ‘Edinburgh Castle Road’ we were feeling a bit too much like we were back in Scotland!

Before we had arrived in Brisbane we had been in touch with an Aussie mate we used to work with back home and we were lucky enough to have an invite to our first proper Aussie BBQ! When we arrived at James and Bee’s flat (after getting lost in the city plenty times) the food was already roasting and some beers were waiting – superb! It was great to catch up with James and Bee and they were kind enough to offer to put us up for a couple of night’s aswell so we took a wee break from Sheila and decided to enjoy some well needed home-comforts!

The next day we headed into the city for a bit of sight-seeing – we spent most of our time dodging the massive showers of rain that seemed non-stop. In between the showers Paul managed to drag Tina to an art gallery, museum, planetarium aswell as Parliament House – impressive eh! Brisbane seems like a really busy city, it has a great skyline that we got perfect views of from the Southbank. We could still see some damage from the enormous recent floods that hit here but it looked to us like it was a city that had recovered.

One of the other cool things that Brisbane has to offer is a massive national park that is on its doorstep. You can drive to the top of Mount Coot-tha where there is a viewpoint of the whole city which is pretty spectacular. Afterwards, we parked Sheila up for the day and ventured off on an aboriginal art trail that was hidden in the forest – after clambering over fallen trees and wading over overflown rivers we were a bit disappointed when the art works consisted of some small coloured stones!!

Since being back at home we had also arranged to meet up with our friend Kelly who was in Brisbane visiting family. On Saturday morning we headed off to meet up, but on the way stopped off at Daisy Hill Koala Centre for our first encounter with Australia’s cutest wee creature! The wee guys are normally snoozing, but luckily when we arrived one was awake but looking pretty chilled out! If we could have taken one of them off with us in our camper we happily would have!

Kelly had invited us to a barbeque with her family – as soon as we arrived we were given a friendly welcome and a beer was put in our hand! It wasn’t long before we were in their pool trying to cool down from the scorching heat. That night we had a cracking BBQ and were joined by more of her family. To top everything off we even managed to steal Kelly’s bed for the next two nights (sorry Kelly!) – in the words of Tina the bed felt like a massive pillow it was so comfy!

The next day we all headed to Wet ’n’ Wild waterpark for a day of adrenalin fuelled flumes and slides! That evening we headed back with our ‘new fam’ for another slap-up dinner – by this point we were starting to feel spoilt rotten but were not complaining! On Monday morning it was time to hit the road again, but not before we had a Scottish fry-up to send us on our way – pure braw! We had brilliant hospitality from all of Kelly’s family which was really appreciated – thanks to Pete and Rose for putting us up and also cheers to Kelly, Billy, Denise, John and Gail for looking after us so well and the great banter… as Paul liked to remind Tina it was proper Fife hospitality!!

---