Oh my God a big city!!

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Carpet Shark swimming towards me!

WOW, we are shell shocked!!! After 6 weeks in the Outback and North Queensland coastal towns we arrive in the big smog of Brisbane.

It is really very strange to suddenly be surrounded by huge buildings and over a million people. We had 2 days to explore Brisbane and so after catching up on some odd jobs (doing laundry and blogs takes up so much time!) we set out to do a bit of a walking tour of Brisbane.

We began at the City Hall and the rather impressive clock tower, after a short ride in the first ever Brisbane lift and some interesting facts from the lift driver(?) we moved on through some nice gardens and a War memorial ending up at the oldest Church in Brisbane and the Cathedral next door. It is worth noting at this point that Brisbane has an interesting mix of old colonial buildings and very modern and funky new build.

From the Cathedral we headed towards the river and past the very impressive former Land Administration Building and Treasury Building, thee have now been converted into a Hotel and a Casino!!

After taking a stroll through the Botanical Gardens we attempted to cross the river using the local ferry. Unfortunately we got on the wrong one and ended up heading in the opposite direction and out towards the sea!! Luckily the ferry stopped at a nice area called Riverside and we had a wander around its Markets and grabbed some lunch by the river.

After getting some assistance from the ferry staff we managed to get onto the other side of the river and enjoy a lovely walk through the South Bank Parklands sampling yet another of the fabulous Cold Rock ice creams! A short stroll along the river and over the Victoria Bridge and we were back where we began having had a nice taste of all things central Brisbane.

Upon leaving Brisbane we were headed to Byron Bay over the border into North South Wales. On the way we stopped off for a quick look at the infamous Surfers Paradise. It really is quite a sight! There is a fabulous beach with some surf (although most locals surf at far better spots along the coast), however the backdrop to this beach is an awful skyline of high rise apartment blocks and hotels. It is a massively over developed piece of coast and we were quite glad we weren't staying.

Byron Bay was quite the opposite however being a lovely small bay with a nice little town. It has just enough development to be comfortable but not too much so it feels tacky. We actually based ourselves in the nearby Lennoxheads as the campsite was nicer! Our main activity here was doing a dive in the Julian Rocks Marine Park. This dive was to be quite different from our previous ones being that we are further South and the water is cooler (20 degrees compared to the Reefs 26!) there is far less coral however the upside is that as it is in an area where warm currents meet cold ones it attracts some much larger marine life!!

After squeezing into our thicker wet suits and bouncing across the 2m swell in a speedboat (luckily only a 5min journey!) we were in the cold water and descending down our descent rope. Before we had even reached the bottom to begin our dive into Hugo's Trench we had been passed by a Ray and very large turtle! The two of us followed our guide into the trench at times struggling to see him as the visibility was down to 5-7m due to the rough seas. The sights once we were in the trench however were worth any rough seas!! We saw amongst other things a Massive Ray laying on the sandy bed (his body 2m across!), carpet sharks!, Kingfish, turtles, smaller stingrays swimming past us and a huge Estuary Cod. Make sure you watch the shark video!!

The 40minutes passed way too quickly and before we knew it we were back on shore and heading South towards a half way point to Sydney. We will be in Sydney shortly and the Campervan adventure will nearly be over!!

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Photos

Lift off!!
We watched these guys for ages, taking off from the top of waves and pulling stunts. They must have been about 20m off the surface! We also chuckled at1 guy who was absolutley useless (from the safety of the beach of course!)

A very blurry shoal of little fish.
This isn't dodgy camera work they did actually look blurry!!

Comments

[Nick Moss]

wish i was there
You lucky pair, i will send you a message on your email ie house prices etc take care

[Gill]

Still jealous
I dont sit by my computer waiting for notification of your next blog - honest. The photos are superb and the blogs so informative. We still miss you at the gym Vicky. Sue has heard from Livs and apparently the combat they have just done is the best yet. Take care and keep up the good work. Gill :-)