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Published: April 2nd 2009
Yeah!! Finally we're out of the nightmare that was Cairns.... We flew to Brisbane after Jean's spots had dried up, but she still covered up with a tasteful scarf (neck spots hideous!!). Nick's cousin Beth welcomed us to her home and what a fab place it is.. on an acre plot in suburban area of Brisbane called Pullenvale, that she shares with her husband Steve and son Sam and of course their Jack Russel cross, Oscar (loved him!!). The house is large with a hot tub and pool.... so, this is by far the best hotel we've stayed at on this trip! On one of the days, Beth drove us up the mountain outside of Brissie where you get fantastic views over the city, viewing the meandering river, Moreton and Stradbroke islands and the other surrounding mountains. We also spent a half day walking down Surfers Paradise, a beach about an hour away from the house, then we both went for a dip in the sea.... what an experience! The waves were amazing and just push you around and wash you about... luckily there are specific areas of the beach that ared patrolled by Lifeguards so we stayed in those areas.
Mountain views
of Brisbane cityOn the Saturday we were there, we went diving just north of Moreton island (the oil slick had gone north past this area) to a reef called Flinders reef. It was a great reef, full of life, colourful fish, turtles, small moray, yellow little nudibranchs (sea slugs) and crayfish. It was quite a taxing dive with surge still at 10m deep and a reasonably tough exit to the boat - swell and current. The second dive just didn't happen really as the skipper put us no where near the wrecks! It was Curtain reef, artificially sunk wrecks of over 50... there was severe current and visibility was pretty much nil, so we got out and put it down to experience.
A couple of days we went into the city of Brisbane and got the bus back.. bit of an experience with it being the time for school children travelling home... very busy. We had a few barbies and a few days by the pool relaxing and just generally chilling... getting too relaxed perhaps! It was so easy to stay there, with laurakeets, kookaburras and a possom in the garden! The possom was the family's first sighting too (the
Surfers Paradise
Sand so white... family have been in Australia for about 2 years). It was spotted at night-time munching on the food in the birdfeeder! We all went down to look and Oscar went mad, barking and jumping up like a dog possessed! This chased the possom up the tree, but it new he'd be safe..
Jean's spots were healing nicely and it was time to move on to Sydney where on the following Saturday we were due to get the Indian Pacific to Perth. So we booked flights direct to spend some time in the biggest city of Australia.
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