TUESDAY, MAY 20

The bus from Australian Day Tours was ready and waiting when we got to the lobby 10 minutes before pick-up time. We were the first passengers – and the only ones until we got to Surfer’s Paradise. The driver, Neville, entertained us with a variety of stories before we picked up the next people.

It was a full day of touring around Brisbane – both on the tour bus and on a river cruise. Our first stop was the cliffs at Kangaroo Point where we had a view of Brisbane’s Central Business District and the Brisbane River. Neville offered to take photos of anyone who wanted one so, of course, we had him take one of us with Brisbane in the background.

We had morning tea at the

Breakfast Creek Hotel.

They served tea or coffee and scones (or you could purchase something “stronger” at the bar which opens at 10 a.m.). After tea, we were dropped off at the dock for the hour long river cruise. Some of the homes along the river are fantastic – and we saw a lot of examples of “Queenslander” homes – houses that are built on “stumps” so that they are raised up off the ground. There were also a lot of old factories and storehouses which have been made into apartments. The cruise ended at South Bank, at the site of Expo 88 (it reminded us a lot of the Expo 86 site) where we had just over an hour to explore on our own before meeting the tour bus again. As it is the 20-year anniversary of Expo 88, there were a lot of photos and

markers on display commemorating the event.

Once back on the bus, we toured around Brisbane a little more before heading to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for an hour and a half. There were a lot of koalas – and they were separated into different pens – there were the mothers, the “kindergartners” (koalas who had recently been separated from the mothers), the bachelors and a retirement centre. We spent most of our time watching the kindergarten – it was time to change the feed trees so the little guys were quite active. I found the map of the complex, that we were given, confusing. We really didn’t see many of the animals at all. We were looking for the pademelons (a type of small kangaroo) but couldn’t locate them. We did see a kookaburra and a

Tawny Frogmouth. Isn’t he cute?

Our last stop was at Mt. Coot-tha Lookout – where there was a panoramic view of the coastal area and some of the mountains. It was a short stop at the lookout and then we started for home. We were the last drop off and were pretty tired when we got back. It was a great tour, though, and Neville is a walking encyclopedia. It seemed like he could answer any question thrown at him and he didn’t mind all the questions.

Temperature: 23 C – sunny

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21

Refreshed again, we decided to drive to the “hinterland” and look at the

Mt. Warning caldera

and mountain. We didn’t have a very good map of the area, so we stopped at the Murwillumbah Info Centre. The gentleman there liked to talk – and we heard all about the area we were interested in plus a lot of others *s* We finally got on our way again, only to be stopped rather suddenly. A campervan was backing out of his parking spot and didn’t see our car. Luckily, his bumper hitch hit our tire and the only damage was that the plastic bumper popped out – easily fixed. It turned out that the fellow driving the van was from Canada (originally) and he and John had a great talk before we got on our way again.

The drive was beautiful – a lot of it seemed to be on the mountan ridges, with steep drops on either side of the road. We saw quite a few banana “orchards” in the distance but the road was too narrow to stop for photos. The first place we were heading to was a

Natural Bridge. It was well worth the hike down (and back up). One of the viewing areas was under the bridge.

Springbrook National Park was the next destination. We stopped at Purlingbrook Falls lookout – there was a loop walk that actually took you under the falls but it was closed because of recent flooding.

John had looked at photos (on Google Earth) that were taken at “The Best of All” lookouts – we were disappointed when we got there as the lookout was closed due to maintenance on the trails.

On the way down the mountain (a 15% grade, very narrow and full of switchbacks), we decided to check out the Hinze Dam. Guess what – it was closed to the public due to construction. We weren’t having a very successful day.

On Wednesday (and Friday) nights, there is a beachfront night market at Surfer’s Paradise. We decided to go there and see what goodies they had for sale. When we got there we discovered that most of the vendors are of Chinese descent and were observing the 3 days of mourning so there were not many stalls to look at.

It was a good day though – we really enjoyed the Natural Bridge and the trip through the mountains. I think Thursday is going to be a laid-back day though. We might go to Point Danger to watch the surfers for a while but not much more than that has been planned.

Temperature: 21 C – sunny (in the mountains)