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Night view
The area close to where we were staying. On our way to Brisbane, we passed through the Gold Coast (a stretch of small and beautiful coastal towns), where the streets bear idyllic-sounding names that reiterate the fact that ‘yes, we are truly beach towns’; names such as Dolphin Ave, Paradise Street, Surf Street. Even the construction workers exude this laid-out vibe; the majority of the workers wear board shorts and brightly coloured shirts, paired with tilley hats, which seems to have replaced the hardhat here. We would have loved to stop in the Gold Coast, and we were originally planning to as a friend of ours lives there, but unfortunately he was away on a surf trip as we passed through, and it seemed like a lot of unnecessary money to spend for a couple of days on the beach.
When we booked our hostel room in Brisbane, they said it was about a 5 minute walk from the bus depot. Yeah, right. 20 minutes later (uphill, might I add), with aching shoulders and backs from carrying our very heavy packs, we finally found the place. Fortunately, our room was pretty decent and was in a separate building with only three other rooms sharing the kitchen and bathroom,
Aboriginal carvings
Tibetan building on the South Banks of the city. so we didn't have to worry about the mess of having 20 other people sharing. So far we've been pretty lucky with most of our hostels though.
On our last night in Brisbane, an older woman named Beverly from San Francisco, showed up at our hostel. She had numerous crazy stories, including a particular interesting one about her estranged husband (who, she later informed us, was paying for her trip to Australia). We got talking, and she mentioned that her husband was from Toronto, the Beaches to be exact (our old stomping ground!) We got talking about all his relatives and friends, with whom they’ve spent weeks at their cottages in Canada. She happened to mention her favourite place, Eels Lake, and my ears perked up (our close friend Ben has a family cottage on Eels Lake). We mentioned Spooks Bay, which is right where Ben’s cottage is, and after some questions back and forth, it turned out that Beverly always stays at the exact same cottage! Apparently she’s close with Ben’s uncles and aunts. Pretty crazy. It’s amazing that we can run into someone with this close of a connection, on the other side of the world. It
just goes to show you how small the world really is.
Other than that, our time in Brisbane was pretty uneventful. We wandered around the city on foot (so much walking!), checking out the waterway and marina, as well as the botanical gardens and downtown core. However, we decided to leave after only 4 days, and we booked another journey on our Greyhound bus pass, which is an unlimited hop on-hop-off all the way up to Cairns. Brisbane struck as us just another big city, nothing special, and most importantly of all, not much in terms of work other than your ordinary backpacker work (i.e. handing out pamphlets for travel companies). The city itself is alright, but it boasts nothing spectacular or different from any of Canada’s major cities, and to be honest, we’d prefer to settle in a smaller city if possible.
After leaving Brisbane, we made our way up to the Sunshine Coast (yes, that’s really what it’s called), which is basically another beautiful stretch of coastal towns. We’ve going to spend a few days in one of the larger towns, Noosa, home to a great national park we’ve been wanting to check out, as well as
Man-made beach
An interesting man-made beach on the banks of the river. Good concept I guess, but seems odd against the backdrop of the skyscrapers... some beautiful beaches, before heading further north to see about picking up some tourist work or even some wwwofing in between. We were actually hoping to meet up with a WWOOF farm we found, right near Brisbane. The wife is a creative writing professor, and the husband teaches environmental science studies. They need help rescuing their land to create an organic veggie garden, which is something we know enough about as we did the same thing is Toronto. Unfortunately, they have wwoofers at the moment and cannot take us for another two weeks. As much as we would have loved to stay around, we don’t particularly want to wait around in Brisbane, nor can we really afford to. Hopefully we’ll be able to eventually come back to this farm, as this couple sounds pretty great, and I’m sure we’d enjoy our time here.
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Mommy Bear
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Missing You
Big Hug to you two little cubs! It looks like you are having an incredible time so far. The woofing sounds cool. I'd like to do that! I'm trying to figure out how to send a private message. Lov you loads,