Birds apparently start early in the day ignoring the fact that Queenslanders don’t have daylight saving, so we had to start our day at 6.45am for a bird walk. This was billed by O’Reilly’s as an early morning bird walk, so the title fitted though it was us doing the walking, not the birds …. The guide started outside the main entrance with a...
Sadly we had to leave Flaxton this morning and move on. On our way we stopped for coffee and a croissant at the lovely local French restaurant. The proprietor is friends of Dene and David’s and we had a lovely reception. We headed straight off from there and back through Brisbane, across the Gateway Bridge and down towards Canungra. there we joined the...
Mooloolaba seafront was very neat. Even the ibises are very well trained and only cross the road at pedestrian crossings. The ibis was historically rare in urban areas, but since the 1970s has decided that it would like the better facilities and in particular the better food scraps offered in towns and cities. They are most commonly found in open public areas, often...
When we were here 28 years ago, Noosa was a relatively sleepy town. Lovely beaches and a beautiful national park, we would struggle to have called it up market. Now we would have to describe it as up something else! The town had changed beyond recognition. The place where we stayed on the modestly named Sunshine Beach had been knocked down and Sunshine Beach was now...
After a rain storm last night, the weather still couldn’t be described as a classic Queensland spring day – grey and cloudy – but it did keep the temperature down and made it quite a comfortable day. We started with a walk around the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve. This is an area of 530,000 square metres and was donated to the local council to...
The forecast wasn’t a classic this morning, but we should know never to trust forecasts. It dawned hot and sunny … So, we headed off to catch the Cityhopper again, only to find that we had just missed one. Given they are every half an hour, we figured we might as well walk ahead of it and allow it to catch us up at some point. It never did catch us up, so...
A slightly quieter day today. We started by catching the free Cityhopper ferry from Dockside (right by the hotel) across the river to Sydney Street. From there we walked along the riverside path to New Farm Park. This is a lovely old park full of roses, which were still just out though almost over, and jacaranda trees. The names jacaranda is believed to be of South...
If I have a superpower (and clearly I don’t!), then it would be finding boats and maritime museums wherever we go. Today was no exception. We started on a boat …. the free Cityhopper ferry along the Brisbane River. This started just outside the hotel and a few stops later dropped us by South Bank and the Queensland Maritime Museum. Given that walking past...
Another day of driving today. We headed off early from Nambucca Heads and got a send off from a kangaroo with a joey in its pouch who was having breakfast in the garden of the B&B. Apparently the word kangaroo is derived from the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru. Joseph Banks must have learnt this word from the Aborigines they encountered as he used the term...
A driving day today. We picked up a car first thing from the Hertz office in Downtown Sydney and then made our way north. Around six and a half hours later (after a lunch stop at a very nice ‘sustainable cafe’ in Nabiac) we arrived in Nambucca Heads. Fairly unprepossessing, but some lovely views along the coast to the north and south. We are staying in a...