This is the third and final part of my posts about my holiday in Australia.
Fair warning: this one may not be as interesting or as long because I didn't go out and do so much in this last part of my holiday.
I arrived at Burleigh Heads (which I found out is not actually a part of the main city but more of a suburb/small town outside of the main area -- fine with me though!) on the morning of Christmas Eve. I had taken a bus from Brisbane and it was quite a quick trip -- only about 2 hours. When the driver was dropping me off at the place I was staying, he was asking me if I was meeting up with my family or friends. When I said no, he was like, "well that's not a very pleasant Christmas then is it?" Umm....suuuure....thank you so much for saying that. Anyway...I arrived around lunch time, and even though check-in wasn't until later, I was able to get into my room right away to drop off my things. Yay! And although I say room...it was actually a small apartment. And when I say small, it was at least twice the size of my apartment here in Japan, so actually not so small. After that, I took a bit of a walk to go pick up some food so that I actually had something to eat for the next day since a lot of places would be closed for Christmas day. Then I went and spent some time on the beach (which was about a 1.5 minute walk away!
First glimpse of the beach!
Early in the evening, I took a walk down the path that went next to the beach, and did some exploring. It was quite loud because at that time there were flocks and flocks of lorikeets flying around and hanging out in the trees along the way. Eventually I came to a small hill, where you had two options...to either go up the hill or go around it for the coastal walk. I chose the coastal one. It was quite pretty.
This is the hill I was talking about, looking from the beach
View the other way...all those tall buildings are in "Surfers Paradise"
Going in through the coastal path
There were so many stretches of beach!
Christmas Day, I spent most of my time on the beach until it started to cloud over, and it poured and there was some really bright and big lightning strikes for at least a couple hours. It was nice to watch!
Watching the lightning from my balcony! It was easier to see the bolts in real life though...
The next day, it was quite cloudy again, so I took a walk to the main city area, going along the coast as much as I could. A couple hours later, I ended up in Surfers Paradise, which is a main part of the city, with some sky scrapers, and is supposedly quite famous. I'm not really sure why... While I was there, I also wandered through the shops for a bit before heading back. That evening I spent some time floating around in the pool at my accommodation and relaxing in the hot tub. Until the lightning started up again.
The view from my balcony off my room
The next two days I just spent most of my time at the beach, enjoying the nice weather. One day I had to head back earlier than expected though. This was because the ocean decided to swallow my towel. That day, I had been sitting quite a ways back from the water as usual (at a point where the water didn't go. Or so I thought. But a couple that was walking by said to me, "You're going to get wet right away!", and so I jumped up and was able to pick up my bags and things, but I couldn't save my towel in time. A big wave had pushed its way really far into the beach and, as I said, swallowed up my towel. That was the ONLY time that I was there that the water went that far up the beach. Bad luck. I took it back to dry out, but I didn't have any other towels, so I was kind of sad because I wanted to spend more time on the beach. Eventually I went back, and just sat on the sand.
On my last day, I wasn't getting picked up to go the airport until the evening (my flight didn't leave until almost 1am). In the morning, I went to a place in the city that looked quite interesting and I wanted to try out. It was called Holoverse. At this place they have interactive hologram experiences. It's kind of hard for me to describe, but basically, imagine the holodeck from Star Trek. It's kind of like that, except not as smart. It was really interesting though! There were different options that you could choose, and I did the one where you go through a few different scenes and have to do different things. One of them was playing with snow, another was climbing over walls, then there were things like picking up apple with a spear, avoiding stampeding jungle animals, jumping through holes, going underwater to watch fish and turtles, and you even got to "fly" at the end.
I think this shows it better. If it doesn't work, click here.
At the end you could also take pictures with some scenes on the wall, and so things like this happened...
When I got back, I spent some time on the beach. I could have also spent more time around the pool at my accommodations because they offered to let me stay there if I wanted, and even said they would lend me a towel...but why go in a pool when you have the beach?! Actually they were quite nice to me...since I wasn't leaving until the evening they said, I could come and go as I wanted (not in my room, but in the pool area), use the pool, and the bathroom as I liked, I just had to buzz at the door and they'd let me in. So kind!
My return flights to Japan weren't so much fun...there were lots of delays, and so the trip became much longer than I thought it would be, but eventually I did make it back home.
After visiting Cairns, the next place that I stayed in was Brisbane.
When I arrived it was already dark, and I was quite hungry and tired, went out the wrong exit at the train station and just missed being able to get some food from the grocery store before they closed for the night. And I was staying in the downtown area of the city, so it was very "city-ish" and after enjoying Cairns, my first reaction was that I may have not made the best choice to stay in a city.
Pretty Butterfly wall in the Queen Street Mall area
However, that being said, there were a lot of interesting things going on that night. There was live music coming from the open cafes/restaurants, and there were buskers everywhere (including one playing the bagpipes...which I found a little unusual). And there was a big Christmas event going on in front of the city hall. I came across it when I was looking for somewhere to eat that was still open at that time of night.
The next morning went a little bit better for me. I stopped in the tourist information office, where I met an extremely helpful, and very informative woman, who gave me SO much information, helped me find some activities that would be of interest to me, and even told me a lot about the next location I would be going to, such as places to go, to eat, which beaches were good, where there were nice views, and so on. She was amazing!
Anyway, thanks to her, I found out about a big market that only happened on Wednesdays (which it was), in a place that was only a 5-10 minute walk away. They had so many things there!! I got myself some nice fresh fruit to bring back, and I ended up getting a snack and a fresh fruit smoothie.
Where the market was being held...
Yummy!
After that, I took a walk through part of Brisbane. There's a river that goes through the city, and you can walk on either side of it, crossing via various bridges. On the other side of the river from where I was, there was a quite long way you could go that went through a kind of park, and led up to what they call "Southbank" which had another one of those man made beach and swimming areas. It was interesting, but kind of weird...from that swimming area, you could look out across the river and see all of the high rises and things in the downtown area. Also in that area, there were all kinds of cafes, small shops, and there was a Christmas market going on in the middle of everything.
This was called the windmill
There were lots of older brick buildings like this in downtown Brisbane
One of the many bridges across the river
You could also hop on and off ferries at various points on either side of the river
I like these trees
Goanas are everywhere!
Nice shady place to walk
The Southbank swimming area/beach
As I continued to walk I got to Kangaroo Point (no...no kangaroos there), which is an area where there are different running/walking paths, and they have rock faces where people are doing rock climbing.
After Kangaroo Point, I turned around and went back across the river, and took a quick little walk through part of the city gardens. They weren't that exciting...just a really big park. Although....I did come across a kookaburra while I was there!!
These birds were everywhere...especially if there was food around...I heard them being referred to as bin chickens (because they wanted the garbage...)
It may be hard to tell but there were SO many of the above birds in this tree!!
Kookaburra, I found you!!!
The next day I went to see koalas!!! (Prepare to be bombarded with koala pictures). I even got to hold one! Her name was Utopia. She was kind of big, super warm and cuddly and I didn't want to give her back. But I had to. While I was at the koala sanctuary, I got to do/see many other things as well. I watched the lorikeets getting fed (they are colorful tropical birds), I sat in on a talk/show about different raptor type birds, I saw a sheepdog show, listened to a talk about koalas, saw kangaroos and emus up close and personal (you could feed them if you bought food), saw various other wildlife, and I saw a dingo in action. The dingo part was unplanned though. They had been resting in their enclosures when a lorikeet that was flying by hit the glass, got stunned, and then....the dingoes got it. Ah. Poor bird. And of course, koalas. Koalas. Koalas. They were so cute!! There were babies too! And, while most of them were quite sleepy, I did see one jump from one tree branch to another. It was very unexpected. Random aside: Did you know koalas have two thumbs? Oh! And there was a platypus too! I could see it swimming around...but it was quite fast, and it was rather dark, so I don't have pictures where you can actually see it. But I saw it!
Not an animal...but I was kind of intrigued and amused...what could this possibly be for?
And now...the KOALAS!!! (They're mostly sleeping though...)
Mama and baby!
Looks so cuddly!!!!!!
Me and Utopia
That night, I saw the Christmas parade that was happening EVERY night until Christmas in downtown Brisbane. They had all different kinds of things going on. Apparently the highlight was the end where Santa came, and they had actual reindeer as well. I couldn't really see anything because there were so many people though...
A couple parts from the parade...you can see a camel, but not the reindeer...
The next day I went up to Mt. Cootha. I started from the view point at the top. While I was there, I ran into a Canadian couple from Toronto who are living Melbourne. They were apparently really happy to meet another Canadian and offered to buy me ice cream. It was kind of interesting? strange? odd? though when they found out that I was Canadian, because of course they asked what part of Canada I was from, and when I told them, the reaction was, "then why are you speaking with a French accent?" What?! French accent?! I don't have that! Although for some reason a lot of Australians said that as well...they always asked if I was French when I said I was from Canada. Why?! Anyway...that aside...
When I was finished at the lookout, I took a walk partway down the mountain through a eucalyptus forest, which also had a short detour where you could find some aboriginal art...although it was difficult to spot. Eventually I got down to the point where the Brisbane Botanic gardens were, and I took a walk through there as well. I really liked it there. They had all different types of gardens and plants and birds and things. Right next door to those gardens was a planetarium. I walked through there as well, but I wasn't able to see any of the shows because I would have missed the last bus that goes back into the city. I'm not sure why the last bus was at 4:00 though...it's too early! But there you have it.
If you look closely, maybe you can see some of the drawings on the rocks.
Going through eucalyptus forest with some cicadas in the background.
My final full day in Brisbane was really fun. Although, come to think of it, I wasn't actually IN Brisbane that day. I had booked myself into a bush walk tour, that was to go out to Springbrook National Park, and was supposed to see all kinds of waterfalls along the way. I knew it was going to be a really small group (that's part of why I chose it), but it ended up being just me and the guide, because the other couple suddenly had to fly into Sydney due to getting injured the evening before. Darryl, my guide, was a retired park ranger, and he talked a LOT about the area, the plants, the wildlife, the history, all kinds of things. I learned a lot. It was also quite interesting because apparently his wife is also a teacher, and although they've never been outside of Australia before, I guess she studied Japanese for a while just because. Interesting connections! His wife also made all of the food for the trip, so during the two tea breaks we had, I got to eat a very yummy lemon coconut cake and caramel cupcakes. The lunch that I got was really great too...there was so much food, but it was all really yummy! I think the lunch had cucumber, tomatoes (the one part I didn't want), a lot of roast chicken, freshly baked buns, a savory vegetable biscuit, a package of crackers and cheese, grapes, an apple, and more, but I can't remember it all. Needless to say, I was very full after lunch. The waterfalls we saw were really beautiful! But I think it's easier to show you with pictures, but they don't even capture it that well. The pace that we took through all of the areas we visited was quite slow, but that was because every couple minutes or so, Darryl would stop and point something out, or explain about something or other. So I got to see all kinds of tiny things that may have been overlooked otherwise. Things like trap doors that a certain type of spider build to cover up their homes. At one location that we stopped at, when we had just gone into the forest, we were surprised by really loud bangs that sounded kind of like explosions. At one point we met another group, and they'd been hearing it for a while as well, and were a bit worried. At that point we were at a location where we could see this GIANT cloud of black smoke. As the bangs continued, we actually saw flames shoot up as well and more black smoke. Because the explosions kept happening, Darryl was worried that a car had gone up in another car park and it was spreading to other cars. But, after calling it in, it turned out that it was a bus or something on someone's private property, and the stuff in the garage it had been in was also exploding. Later on we found out that that person ended up losing their entire home to the fire as well. Not good. And it was 2 days before Christmas as well.
Our first stop for teatime...
When we first got to this view point it was completely covered by cloud, but we waited for a bit and were rewarded!
In the top left corner...that's where all the black smoke was...(I cut it off)
Walking behind the waterfall...
We stopped and had lunch in front of Twin falls. There was a big crayfish.
Apparently Aboriginals used to camp in these caves when they moved up to the plateau during the summer
'Dancing waters'
And...here's a little compilation of videos I took while out in Springbrook National Park!
