Rainy Days in the Big City

Brisbane from the Museum - Old and New

There are some really great things about living in a big city, like when it rains, there's always something to do.

Super Fun GOMA room

Evan and Oli were in Awe of the "Art" Above them.

The Southbank area of Brisbane is a hub for the arts.  Many of the major museums and galleries are located there, as is the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
It was pretty rainy this past weekend, so we took advantage of the city and went down to see a few sites - on Saturday GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) and the Queensland Public Library, which has an exhibit on art in Children's Lit right now - and then the Queensland Museum and Science Centre on Sunday.

This is one of many "art" displays in "Miss you Magic Land"  ??? Hope Chloe and Kai enjoy it!

Fooling around at GOMA

Evan and Oli were served up for lunch at the Sci Centre

All the museums are free, you just pay for touring exhibits and the Science Centre (which we did this time, but we won't again).
The sun is out again today, so we hope Brisbane dries out and we can enjoy the outdoors again.

Brisbane Life

So far our posts have been about our adventures, but today as I was out for a run, I was thinking about everyday Brisbane life. Here are some of the differences I've noticed between here and Canada:

1. There is life everywhere. So many kinds of birds, trees and critters. We really want to get a bird book because they're constantly singing and visiting the many trees in our yard and the neighbours' yards. And yes, the kookaburas are often around and their laugh is very loud. When we go for a run, critters are constantly scurrying into the bushes: usually little, or big lizards, geckos or birds. It's pretty awesome.
2. People walk around with no shoes...often. It's not uncommon to be in a shop and see someone with no shoes. In fact, the other day when I was handing out resumes, I saw a teacher, who was probably getting his classroom ready, walking around the school with no shoes. It's really weird for us Canadians!
3. Drivers are really polite. Really. They let you in and move over for you. Brisbanites complain about the driving, but we think it's pretty mild, even compared to Calgary, even during rush hour. Ryan Strom, from Ontario, thinks it's a dream compared to Toronto.
4. People really do say "G'day Mate", all the time. It's not just a stereotype. (Also, "how you going?")
5. This morning, on the way to school, we followed the stream of uniformed kids. That really shows a big difference.

Here's a couple of pics of the kids in their uniforms, just before we joined the crowd this morning.

G'day!

8 Year Old Weekend

Well, Evan turned 8 yesterday, or... today in Canada, and we've had a great weekend so far.

For Evan's birthday we went to the local waterpark and had lots of fun on the slides and pools. (Ok, we had fun, that is, after Oli and I decided to break the rules about the height restrictions, which the lifeguards didn't seem to care about, and when kids weren't cutting the line in front of us...seemingly common at that park.)

Then, when Adam was done work, we headed out to a restaurant in Fortitude Valley which is recommended for its gluten-free options. Evan ordered his favourite...gluten free pepperoni pizza, and the rest of us had fabulous meals as well. We'll definitely return to Giardinetto Restaurant another time for gluten free or other. The service was quick, friendly and the food was excellent. In fact, Adam and I shared a salad and pizza, and we don't remember the last time we had such a good pizza (I don't even really like pizza). Oli had ravioli with a creamy garlic sauce, and I could have eaten it all up!

Here's a pic of Evan on the stroll in Fortitude Valley on the day he turned eight.

Today, we summited another of the Glass House Mountains. Our brave little hikers scrambled up to the summit of Mount Tibrogargan, the legendary "father" of the the other mountains. For about three hundred meters, we were really scrambling... I'll let the photos do the talking. Our little hikers outdid a fair number of adults, in fact one young guy who saw the kids on the way up dubbed them "legendary". Yes!!

After our hike, we had a picnic which a lace monitor lizard decided to join. When I first saw it, I thought it would be shy, like the one that ran into the bushes when I saw it in Noosa, but this one had decided to join us for lunch. It made an absolute bee line for us, to the point where we were scrambling for the top of the picnic table (see pics). It then picked up all of our scraps and hung around for a good 1/4 hour. Though it looks relatively harmless, it's claws are significant and we didn't want to take chances. An Australian woman who walked by had a good laugh about us being on the top of the table though, as she said that the claws are for tree climbing, which apparently monitor lizards are great at.

Now, for the funniest part of our day... we are still laughing about it. After our picnic, we were still thirsty and quite tired of the pretty warm water in our hydration packs. So, we stopped at the IGA in town and picked up some "juice boxes". That's what we thought they were until we took a sip of the thickest juice syrup we had ever had. It was disgusting (except to Oli, who loved it). Then I started reading more carefully and realized that it was juice concentrate...add to 2 litres of water. Oops.

Our last stop was in Kilcoy, in the hinterland. On the way there, we ran over - not on, - a snake. It fit right between our wheels and reared it's head up as we passed. It may have been a black-bellied snake or a rough-scaled snake. We're not sure. Either way, I'm glad we didn't see it too close up. That makes our second Queensland snake - the other was the carpet python we saw in the tree in Noosa.

As for Kilcoy (rhymes with killjoy)..not a lot going on there, but Adam did get some great shots of some beautiful birds. The birds in Oz are absolutely amazing, starting at about 4 am. We'll talk more about that in another blog.

Surfing and the Sunshine Hinterland

First of all, here are a couple of photos from our deck. The first one is of our dinner the other night, and the 2nd is from when we were going to bed. Oli said "there's a cat in the tree," only to discover that it was actually two possums.
They don't seem interested in our deck, but rather in the neighbour's dog food, which is good. Apparently they make a real mess if they get into your stuff.

The next day we headed down to Queen Street in downtown Brisbane. There was a kids' comedy fest on, which was fun. It was a really hot day though, so we tried to keep to the shade as much as we could.

On our way camping, we made our first foray into the "Hinterland", north of Brisbane. When I hear the word "hinterland", I think of barren wilderness, snow and desolation. Well, this is not the case in Queensland, at least not the part we've explored during the past few days. On our way to do some more camping along the coast, we took the scenic route through the Glass House Mountains. We made our way to the lookout and did a short walk to begin with. The mountains are the remaining lava cores of former volcanoes.

They are also sacred to the aboriginal peoples and there are interesting creation stories related to them. The mountain in the picture, Mt Coonowrin, is said to be bowing his head in shame for abandoning the rest of his family in a flood.

We then had a great lunch and look around at the town of Maleny, which has beautiful little shops, local cheeses and wineries. We also passed through Montville - again very cute with shops and retreats. The roads in the area are extremely steep and windy - 10 to 12 percent grades. It was fun to drive them on a nice day, but I wouldn't want to try it in a storm. Oli and I agreed that the best moment came when we stopped at a lookout over the valley and the out to the coast. We had the coolest breeze we've felt in Australia and were refreshed. It's the mountain people in us!

We spent a couple of fun days around Noosa again, including a stop in Great Sandy National Park. The highlight for the boys was trying out the surfboard. It was a big hit and Evan is definitely hooked. He got up on his 3rd wave and hasn't stopped since. Oli has learned to arch! Eric, Marcia, Nathan and Josh joined us for some beach frisbee, boogie boarding and beach fun.

The next day, we also saw our first "wild" kangaroo on a hike near Lake Cootharba. As you can see, he wasn't all that wild as he let me get this close! On the way, we also saw these cockatiels on someone's lawn. It was interesting to see so many "exotic" birds just milling about.

Finally, we returned to the Glass House Mountains again today and did a great summit hike of Mount Ngungun. The boys were pretty hooked on the hike and are now talking about how we should do one of the Great Walks in Australia (they're 5 days - 100 km). We'll see!

Beach Paradise

Well, we just finished our first Aussie camping trip. We used some of the Christmas money that Jane and Lynn gave us to buy a really big tent - or so we thought until we arrived at the caravan park where we were staying. There are some really, really big tents in Australia - and cool set-ups like 4x4 tent trailers and the like.

The camping was pretty cool. At caravan parks they have a fridge, bbqs and a sink for campers to use, so it's quite easy to go.

We went to a place about 1.5 hours north of Brisbane called Noosa. Noosa is a group of little townships and beaches - all interconnected. We went to a different beach each day - starting with the famous surfing beach: Sunshine Beach. The waves were pretty powerful, but it was safe to swim and body surf in the patrolled area. The view down the beach, which stretches for kms and kms is spectacular.

The next day we decided to try out the Main Beach, right in town. It was much gentler as far as waves go, and much more crowded. We parked the car at about 8:20 am, and we had to walk about a kilometer to get to the beach. By the way, at 8:20 am it's about 27 degrees. The daily weather reports advise the UV index from 7:30 am until 4pm. We bought a family friendly sunscreen with a pump - 1 litre size and it won't last! Evan and Oli spent some of their Christmas money from Granny and Granddad on boogie boards - thank you!

They had tonnes of fun riding the waves. After being at the beach for a while and having lots of fun, we walked along to Noosa national park - which is absolutely gorgeous. It was amazing how quickly we were away from the coast and into the rainforest.

On day three we went back to Noosa National Park and did about a 6 km hike. It served the dual purpose of keeping us out of the sun for a while and giving us some great scenery.

We think Dr. Seus visited here before writing his books. What do you think?

We ended the walk at Tea Tree Bay, where we watched the surfers and got in some more body surfing. It is a quiet, cool beach we would definitely return to.

Our fourth day we went to a place called Peregian Beach, a little further south of Noosa. It was laid back, and had great waves. We played some frisbee on the beach, body surfed, checked out the very cute town and generally enjoyed our day.

Finally, on our way home, we stopped at the Big Pineapple, one of Australia's "Big" tourist attractions. We're hoping to get our photo next to quite a few of them this year. Luckily, today (Saturday) was the weekly market, with loads of organic, local farmers selling their wares. It was an awesome stop.

All in all, we'd recommend Noosa to anyone who loves the beach, shopping, cute shops, restaurants and cafes, beautiful walks and... ok, we recommend it to everyone!

xoxo

Julie, Adam, Evan and Oli