QLD - Odd Days in Brisbane

We had quite a few spare days here is Bris, when we had nothing planned and could use time at our leisure. This was quite nice for us, having been on fairly tight schedules ever since we left Africa. We spent some of the time just watching movies, the cricket or reading, and some of the more interesting things are below...

We had the car at our disposal for a couple of days, so we headed down to Sea World for the day. However, it really started raining hard when we were about half way there, so we decided to turn round and come back on a better day. Instead we headed to the Queensland museum, which was fairly interesting and helped pass the time.

When we made it back to Sea World, it was fairly good, but not really worth the entrance fee. You pay over the odds to see the Polar bear enclosure and the Dolphin show, which admittedly both are very good. Not many places have Polar bears, so it was good to see these so active, jumping and splashing around. They also had some Christmas presents, and one bear was tucking into his giant ice lolly he'd unwrapped!!

The dolphin show was also very good, with lots of big splashes, jumps and tricks. One kid got pulled out the audience and got to feed a dolphin, and he looked so happy!!

The other attractions included a lame sea lion show which was a major cheese and corn fest; the dugong enclosure; the huge artificial reef with sharks, rays and a whole manner of colour fish which was impressive; the big wheel (Evelyn was brave and had a go on this); a roller coaster (Ev not so brave for this one); and a water ski show which was ok, and they did some good tricks on the water- and jet- skis. Its probably better if you have kids, but even then one of the other theme parks may have been better...

We spent a couple of days in Brisbane CBD looking around the shops and the gardens. One day we borrowed John & Sasha's bikes and rode into town. There's a bike track which runs along the Brisbane River into the CBD - its about 5ks. After finding all the helmets & locks, and pumping up the tyres at the garage, we headed to the street beach on Southbank. This man-made beach is next to the river, and is basically a pool with sand, but is really nice on a hot sunny day. Just behind the pool are rows of shops, and The Plough Inn. This is also where the market is held at the weekend. We had quite a nice afternoon here, just relaxing, and topped it off with Cold Rock ice cream.

On another day in the city we met up with Charles and Debie, Evelyn's 2nd cousin & wife, for lunch. Evelyn hasn't seen them for years, so it was really nice to see them and catch up. Lunch wasn't long enough though so we're planning to meet up properly when we come back to Brisbane in Feb.