The Brisbane Roar

We got two season tickets to the roar. Today we attended a members only event. Gus quickly became a big fan. Ellie fell in love with a chicken. Both kids got posters signed by all of the players.

Queensland museum

Queensland is a huge state, covering all of the Northeastern part of the continent. There is a really interesting state museum at south bank. We spent the afternoon there today. They have some nice natural history and local history exhibits.

Apartment living

We really enjoy the Inn on the Park in Toowong. It's close to necessities and easy for Rich to get to work. It has great views! But there are some drawbacks - see Gus' main outdoor activity that doesn't require supervision in the video link below. The kids are also allowed to ride the elevator and ride their bicycles in the parking garage.

Mt Cootha / bicycle ride

We rode our new bicycles to Mt Cootha today. Our visit to the park was good. We saw a planetarium show and saw much of the garden, including some bats and lizards.

Mt. Warning

Mount warning park was beautiful. We went for a few short walks, saw the remnants of the volcanic caldera and had a chance to see some nice rainforest. We also saw a couple of huge! lizards.

We took a second weekend trip, this time south of Brisbane to Mt. Warning carvan park. We stopped at Rainbow beach to get in a little body surfing. Gus and Ellie thought it was a little calm and weren't too happy about being required to swim between the flags (where the lifeguards are watching). There were several surfers catching the point breaks and some younger kids leaning on the smaller waves. Gus wants to surf! Around the bend there were some kids on boogie boards in a spot where incoming waves that were quite large would meet outgoing waves, pushing the kids way up in the air - 25-30 feet! This within about 25 feet of the rocky shore. How anyone ever figured out that this was possible is beyond me.

We picked up some shrimp and other things for dinner (Gus is crazy for shrimp these days) and headed into the hinterlands. We wound up at Mt. Warning carvan park. It was a little ... rustic. Apparently you're supposed to bring your own bedding. We didn't know that in advance...

Quick breakfast followed by coffee in Uki.

Noosa

We took a weekend trip to Noosa. We had a wonderful time! We stayed at a nice hotel, had some good food and the kids had an awesome time at the beach. It was not very crowded - still winter after all. Ellie and Gus wore themselves out two days in a row.

First week here

Rich started at the office today. The campus is located close to the Central Business District and from Toowong is an easy City Cat + short walk away. 20 mins + $A2.70 each way. The office is great and everyone is very friendly - but enough about work!

Beth and the kids took the City Cat to South Bank today. It's a new development on the South side of the river. They hit the beach which is right on the river and rode the big wheel. The Conant kids were the only one's playing at the beach as if it were summer time.

Day 2, Koala Sanctuary

Day 2:

We had brunch today with Peter and Jenny Grace at a cafe in Milton. The place was filthy with bicycle riders. Apparently there are several popular routes nearby - along the river, up Mt. Cootha - will have to give some of them a whirl!

After breakfast, they took us over to the Koala Sanctuary and the kids had a nice time getting up-close with several of Australia's animals.

Arrival down under

We arrived early in the morning after a long, but not terrible flight across the Pacific. Rich earned the prize for most sleep in-flight and funniest sleeping pose - head leaning forward, mouth hanging open...

Beth was lucky to avoid jail and a fine coming through customs. Rich filled out the arrival form incorrectly (neglecting to remember that we had food and sporting equipment in our luggage). After a very slow inspection, including scraping the soil off of Ellie's riding boots), we were able to enter the country.

Peter Grace met us and helped us with the luggage and hailing a cab. We caravanned over to our apartment in Toowong and dropped off the luggage at our apartment at Inn on the Park. After a little unpacking, we walked over to Toowong village - a shopping mall located near our apartment. We had some fun getting the groceries - it's a little different, but quite a bit more expensive. Then we schlepped them back to the apartment and had a bite to eat.

Later in the day, we took the city cat into the Central Business District and visited the botanical garden. The kids loved it! They were fascinated by all of the different kinds of seeds and the huge pieces of plant debris lying around. Back in Fort Collins we always have a well-stocked collection of wood products and other plant litter. They quickly began to build up a collection here. They had a great time climbing on the banyan figs in the park too.