Blogs from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

I cannot believe my last article was written in March! After a month of visiting friends and family in Europe, we flew to Melbourne… Rainy and cold Melbourne. It turned out to be a nice city, but we wanted warmth and sun (otherwise, we might as well have stayed in Essex!) so we decided to move South to the Gold Coast. We stayed there for about a month. We lived in an AirBnB in Elanora with a lovely host, Ria, until I found a job in Brisbane (and we realised jobs in the Gold Coast were hard to get by). After two weeks of commuting from the Gold Coast to Brisbane (about 2 hours and a half), we moved into a little studio flat in Brisbane, New Farm, very close to the city centre, where we ... read more

Coff's Harbour and The Road to Brisbane Thanks to my wife’s suggestion to leave Sydney a day early, I had a short 2 1/2 hour ride up to Coff’s Harbour from Port Macquiere. Coff’s H is a getaway spot with both marinas and beaches. I wanted a hotel along the beach-however that’s not exactly what I got. That said: what I got was actually pretty cool. I reserved Brodie’s Beach House Bungalow (BBHB) Which turned out to be more of a Air BnB in a residential area. I drove right past it on my first pass thinking I was looking for a resort (see the little sign). Brodie’s consist of a 4 bedroom house with a little 1 room bungalow behind the house. No one was around so I called and got the owner and told ... read more

Nach Nordkorea habe ich einen großen Sprung gemacht: Mit dem Nachtzug bis Peking gefahren und am nächsten Morgen gleich von Peking aus über Bangkok nach Brisbane geflogen, denn… Ich hatte das tolle Angebot von meinen Freunden Gabriela und Dieter, für 2 Wochen mit nach Ausstralien zu kommen, um in den Whitsundays mitzusegeln. Wer die Whitsundays kennt, weiß wovon ich spreche, für alle anderen bitte unbedingt mal die Whitsunday Inseln googlen und Bilder anschauen: Weiße Sandstrände, türkisfarbenes Meer und tolle Inseln… Schließlich bin ich in Brisbane gelandet und brauchte tatsächlich erstmal ein paar Tage, um wieder im „normalen“ Leben anzukommen. Fotos hochladen, Mails und Whatsapp beantworten usw. Da ich bereits vor einigen Jahren in Brisbane war, kannte ich die Stadt und mochte sie auch dieses Mal wieder sehr… entspanntes Aussie-Leben ;-)…mit Felsklippen zu... read more

Once I had settled into my hostel in Brisbane, I went out for dinner with Aisling and Danielle and some of their friends. They insisted on the River Bar, which had a lovely view on one of Brisbane's famous bridges and amazing food. Afterwards, we went to a bar called Brooklyn and they had the best band there! It was upbeat, a lot of the songs were Spanish and they were so talented that all I could do was watch them in complete awe. Later we went to another place to meet Céline, Chiara and Malin, and overall I can say that I had a great night out with all of them! The next day, Malin had invited me to stroll through the city and take the free ferry, and I met Julia and Rahel. It ... read more

To day is our last real day in Australia so Karen took us on a tour of Brisbane. First we went to the lookout at mount Coot-tha which is south of the city. We bought some last minute gifts which will have to be sent home in the post. We then went into the city and had a little walk to the bridge then back along the river alongside the lagoon to a tapas bar for lunch. The waiters girlfriend comes from Cambridge. After dinner we went for a walk along the river to kangaroo cliffs where they do abseiling. We saw a group of kids abbing down the cliffs. Amazing lizards where all along the walk and at the cafe at the end a big lizard sat just under this chaps chair. Back home for ... read more