And just like that, we're back in Brisbane

We left New Zealand for the sunny shores of Brisbane in early May.  Nothing like a few winter months in Queensland weather.      We arrived to glorious sunny days of around 23 or 24 degrees and if this is winter weather, we like it!

We  initially stayed with my brother on the Redlands Coast, about 45 mins south of Brisbane city. It's a fantastic coast line with so many bays and tracks to explore and its the perfect time to be doing this, too hot they tell me in summer time :)  

We have now moved about 5mins away while we take care of a house and garden for the next wee while. So we have plenty of time to explore all the options Brisbane has to offer.   
One of the first things we did was visit Victoria Point beach and the  causeway to King Island. We walked across the tidal causeway last visit and its a magical wee spot. 

[Remember to click on the photos to enlarge and all editing failures are to be overlooked :)  ]

Cleveland has a fab Sunday market with lots of fresh local produce and we happened upon a demonstration against development of the Toondah Harbour which would mean dredging the local fishing beds and harming the bird environments.  Great to see so many people out making their voices heard but I fear the developers will win the Council over with dollars and the protest may be in vain.  

We have been poking around a lot of the little beach settlements, looking at property prices, employment options and local facilities. Just as on our last visit we are so impressed with the community parks and rec facilities. Shorncliffe Pier below was equipped with fish cleaning stations and fresh running water so that the fisho's mess didn't impact families wanting to picnic on the wharf - nice work whomever designed these features, never seen such a clean fishing pier.

We love the little green koala traffic signals, if you are travelling at the correct speed up pops a little green koala, so cute. 

We have been practicing our gardening skills this side of the Tasman with tree trimming at my brothers house. This involved multiple trips to the dump to dispose of the green waste. Always impressed with a well run dump site and the Redlands Council has it 'sussed' with a terrific waste transfer station where you can recycle just about anything and wait for it, its free for rate payers/private local citizens.  How good is that!  No wonder we have seen very little fly tipping around the roads, so sensible not to charge, well done Redlands Council and a very slick operation, we tested it out with many dump loads worth :)

There are so many  tracks and paths to explore. With the coastal birdlife and mangrove forests you often spot wonderful birdlife from dawn to dusk. We happened upon a big Kookaburra sitting on a street fence bold as brass - not bothered by people walking by at all.   

Popped over to Wynnum and Manly beaches  to have a little fossick around the beach and park tracks.

  We are still in awe of this winter weather, glorious! 

The Wynnum Mangrove boardwalk is worth a visit. Spectacular mangrove forest and the birdlife is plentiful.  

After looking into the tidal pools you suddenly 'get your eye in' and it's alive with Fiddler crabs!  Great food for all those tidal birds. 

We saw Spoonbill, White Egret, Pied Stilts, White Faced Heron and Brahmin Kite - never seen a Brahmin Kite before - majestic as it hunted over the tidal ponds with a couple of Plover trying to see it off.  Photo below from the web as I couldn't capture it with my little phone camera. In flight its so colourful.

One of the pleasures of new neighbourhoods is being able to taste the local produce.  Before our coastal walk we had a healthy brunch at a funky little café just off Manly beach esplanade,  Cambridge Lane Expresso - very nice. 

 It's nice to be able to try different things to what's on offer back home.  

We'll do regular updates as our Brisbane 2023 adventure unfolds. So far its been wonderful having time with family we don't get to see that often and  to meet my adorable new great nephew from Melbourne.   

The Return

On Thursday 8 September 2022 it was bye bye Brisbane and welcome  back to One Tree Point, New Zealand.

We didn't land  in Auckland until late Thursday night and it was dark and chilly when we finally landed at Whangarei, the last flight of our holiday adventures.

We did a bit of unpacking and tasks  to get the house a bit opened up before getting to bed around 11.30pm.   We heard on the late BBC news that the Queen was being cared for by doctors at Balmoral Castle and her children were flying in. It didn't sound good.

We woke up to hear the news of the Queen's death. The end of an era.

It was a glorious day so we took a walk around the local beach paths.

We've had a fantastic holiday catching up with family and friends.

 

We've taken 17 flights, 7 ferry rides, 20 train rides, 22 bus rides and we were fortunate to not get Covid, we never lost our luggage and didn't have a single flight cancelled. 

We've met wonderful down to earth people, shared experiences and laughter -  often when we weren't speaking the same language!  

Thank you to all our friends and family that put us up, showed us the sights and made our journey so special 💓

I wonder when our next overseas adventure will be?   

We'll keep you posted and in the mean time bring on spring and summer. 

Roma Street Parklands

 

Only our second day of rain in Brisbane, well more like cloudy skies and the threat of rain so off we went into the city again. The train back and forth is the way to go, no parking hassles!

We snuck into the City Hall auditorium as having checked out the splendor of the exterior on our previous town visit, we were still curious about the interior. It didn't disappoint.

There was a jazz trio playing so we sat and enjoyed the grandeur for a while. 

City Hall is magnificent and it's  great to have this historic building smack bang in the heart of the  city while all around  new modern towering buildings are popping up like mushrooms. Great rest rooms too!    

Off we set for the Roma Street Parklands across St George's Square which had a wonderful sculpture just tucked away in the corner. Only later did we discover there is a fantastic self guided CBD public sculpture walk  - we'll  save that  for our next visit.

To get to Roma Street Parklands you take the path up the delightful Jacobs Ladder Steps which in itself is a sweet little green spot in the city.

At the foot of Jacobs Ladder we came across  a set of four Darlek cast brass sculptures. They are terrific and were part of the 1988 Brisbane hosted World Expo. Whilst looking like Darleks we later discovered they were  "Forms of Myth" (Forme Del Mito ) by Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro. Each piece  a character from the ancient Greek play Agamemnon. They are in the sculpture walk apparently :)

Another surprise on our walk to the gardens was Queensland's oldest historic building, a human powered windmill built in 1828. It was used to grind wheat and maize and as there was not enough wind to drive the sails, a convict powered treadmill was used. Once the penal colony was closed in 1842  it became an observation deck/lookout used to signal ships coming up river by a series of flags and then later still it  was used  to fire a cannon daily at 1.00pm so the good people of Brisbane could set their  clocks and watches.  Fantastic to stumble upon the gem.

Hurrah we made it to Roma Street Parklands, literally just 10 mins direct walking (we stopped a lot) from the CBD and you have 16 hectares of stunning parkland with  a range of paths to explore.

The gardens are ready to burst into bloom with spring and will look even more stunning in a couple of weeks.

There are any number of picnic lawns, dells, outdoor seating and there looked to be a free entertainment programme every weekend. 

Just walking along admiring the gardens we came across two incredible water dragons  - living dinosaurs! They were clearly comfortable being admired by the park visitors! Zoom in and you can really see how incredible they are.

 There is a large lawn that leads down to a stunning fountain and  lake which is home to many  Australian White Ibis. They looked lovely in this park setting.  We've seen them in the city being a nuisance around outdoor cafe tables, like seagulls on the food scrounge but much bigger than seagulls!  

We had intended to walk across the river footbridge to the Museum but we had run out of steam so happily jumped on the train and went home happy.  We can highly recommend Roma's Street Parklands to Brisbane visitors and be sure to check the event programme online, they have free  summer concerts which would be fabulous in that garden setting.

Home again, home again jiggedy-jig.

 

Gallery time

We visited the fantastic little Redlands Gallery.

 Sihot’e Nioge: When skirts become art works showcases  beaten bark cloths from Omie culture in the remote mountain rainforests of Oro Province, not so far from Kokoda, Papua New Guinea.

Such intricate patterns, photos don't do them justice.

The bilum bags were both traditional and contemporary.

Having an art fest day we then went on to the Little School House gallery that features local artists works.

There are four little galleries in the original school house cottages. Such a great range of local artists works.

The Redlands Coast really has so much going for it and the sense of community is wonderful.

Hervey Bay

 We've been enjoying Queensland coastal life so much  we decided to head north, 300kms north, and  check out Hervey Bay. 

Really great roads here for long distance driving. Once out of the Brisbane city limits it was easie peasie.

We passed  pass field after field of sugar cane. Fun fact, approximately 95% of the sugar produced in Australia is grown in Queensland. Around 85% of the raw sugar  is exported and generates over $2 billion in export earnings.  In the news is a  sugar factory at Maryborough which closed two years ago, the end of 126 years of crushing, which now looks to be reopening with a new Japanese Australian joint venture as a bio-energy hub making  renewable diesel from sugarcane with crushing resuming in 2023. It will be great for the community with jobs being available again. I hope it works out for them. 

Hervey Bay is known for whale watching.  The whales  rest here as they pass through  on their annual migration to their breeding grounds on the Great Barrier Reef. We didn't see any but the beach and water were stunning.

We saw what must be the longest pier in Australia, the Urangan Pier.  Built in 1913 to transport cargo,  like sugar cane,  between rail and  deepwater ships.  The pier was closed in 1985, and 239 metres of it was demolished!  The locals rallied and saved the remaining 868mtrs for the community - fishing looked popular!

There's a range of beaches to choose from -  Torquay, Pt Vernon, Scarness....many with great beach facilities for families and there's also a range of tourist camp sites. We passed so many caravans on the journey and  having checked out the beachfront camp grounds we can see the attraction. There are cafe's, shops, a local hospital -   much more than we expected to see. 

We didn't get to Fraser Island which sits just off shore. Another fun fact, Fraser Island is  the worlds largest sand island and nature park. Looks like we'll have to come back again and get across to the island.

Lovely to have family in Queensland as we go about exploring. We stopped to visit my Aunt at Tewantin on the return journey.

A great little road trip and I'm assured the pic below is how the whales look from the beach as they migrate north.  We got lucky a few years back at Stinson Beach in San Francisco seeing whales just off the beach ....so we can't complain.