For my readers who see us often I’d be surprised if you didn’t know (as we can’t stop talking about it!!), but for the rest of you around the world, guess what?! We’re going on a cruise!!

This isn’t our first dabble in cruising. We actually went on our first P&O cruise back in 2013 to the Norweigan fjords and we loved it! If you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll know that we like to do things on a budget, we eat and travel like locals and we’re always on the go, usually with a backpack in tow. I would say that our cruise to Norway was the last time we had a relaxing ‘lie by the pool’ kinda holiday and we really can’t wait for 19 nights of pure relaxation, waking up in some wonderful spots all around Europe.

What’s even better than delicious food, excellent entertainment and waking up in a new place every day? 4 members of our family are joining us and we can’t wait to spend this quality time with them celebrating a milestone birthday and just life in general!!

So, where are we going?

9 ports in 7 different countries!

Portugal, Malta, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Spain and Gibraltar!!

We really can’t wait and lucky for us, it’s really not that long away now! I’m going to write blogs about all the ports we visit, including our top tips for exploring them in one day and also a couple of blogs about our time on board, sea days and general cruising info.

Until then, let’s have a flashback to August 2013!!

Our good friend Jess moved to The Netherlands back in December. It had been a while since we’d seen her so we bought a cheap flight and booked a Friday off. Before we knew it we were landing in Amsterdam Schipol ready to explore.

We were out of the airport and on a train to the centre within 20 minutes of landing, which is always a great way to start a trip. I’d visited The Netherlands before, back in 2012, but this was Simon’s first trip so we had a lot of exploring to do. We decided to take a slow stroll through the canals to our lunch meet up spot with Jess. The sun was shining, but don’t let that fool you, it was very cold in February. Amsterdam was as beautiful as I remembered. Colourful and quirky houses lined the canals and bikes were tied to everything stationary.

Because we were in Amsterdam, and Simon had never been, we took a stroll through the Red Light District. At 11am on a Friday there wasn’t much to see, but we did stumble across a shop that I’d found 6 years before, the condomerie. I’ll let your own imagination run wild here.

The last time I visited Amsterdam I was pretty surprised by how little I saw of the ‘weed’ culture, but within 20 minutes of landing at central station we were smelling it and seeing signs to purchase it everywhere. It’s not around you in a pushy or disruptive way it’s just different. Different is fine. We ended up at Dam Square, met Lady Gaga and kept exploring.

The sun was shining, we were exploring ‘somewhere different’ and I have to say we were both feeling pretty happy by this point. We were getting super excited to see Jess and all was right in the world. We ended up walking along some more canals (hard not to in Amsterdam) and picked up some cookies at a place that had been recommended to us, Van Stapele. This bakery only sells one type of cookie and it is the most delicious cookie we’ve ever eaten. It’s got the most unbelievable white chocolate gooey centre and chunky chocolate chips. I’m literally drooling thinking about it. If you’re ever in Amsterdam you have to go and buy a cookie here. And before you ask, no, they weren’t space cakes.

We had half an hour before meeting Jess so we ate some/a lot of cheese in the shops by the flower market. It’s one of those ‘must be dones’. As is taking a photo in some giant clogs.

We made it to our lunch destination, which was an amazing restaurant called Blue Amsterdam. The view of the city was incredible. Jess did well finding this one. We had a leisurely lunch and caught up with Jess learning all about her Dutch adventures since coming to the country before Christmas. I ate some Bitterballen, which are deliciously tasty fried meatballs. I think you’re probably figuring out by now that this trip was quite food orientated. Something I definitely will not be apologising for.

When we spend time with Jess we always make sure that she is happy to ‘go for a walk’. We love that she always seems to forget that a walk with us is more like a trek. Straight after lunch we started our trek of the city which started with a visit to Hard Rock (has to be done) and then onto VondelPark. Simon somehow ended up behind the till at Hard Rock this time…

After VondelPark we did the typical touristy thing of going to the Amsterdam sign. Sorry, but it has to be done.

We then drank Heineken and ate crepes at the amazing Pancake House. We decided not to visit the Anne Frank house this time as I’d been before and with such little time in the city we decided it would be best to just explore.

We walked past some pretty ‘quirky’ artwork…

and saw more beautiful canals before ending up at Body Worlds.

Body Worlds is without a doubt one of the most fascinating and interesting museums I’ve ever visited. The museum is a travelling exposition of dissected bodies that have been preserved through a process, developed by Gunther von Hagens, called plastination. The bodies are all received through a body donation scheme and then prepared with the aim of educating the layman about body structure. The whole plastination process is fascinating and if you’d like to read more about it have a look at this link from their website. https://bodyworlds.com/plastination/plastination-technique/

We were unable to take photos in the museum, but if you google Body Worlds you will see plenty of images come up on Google. In no way did we find the museum gorey or disrespectful. Every exhibit was carefully put together, considerate and very educational. If you’ve got the time in Amsterdam, definitely go!

Pretty much as soon as we finished at Body Worlds, Sibren joined us for dinner. We’d met Sibren before and got along really well, so were looking forward to getting to know him more. We took a stroll back through the red light district and out of respect I only took one photo of the area from a distance. The atmosphere and ‘look’ of the area changes a lot later in the day, but it never feels unsafe or ‘seedy’.

Despite having eaten ALL the food throughout the course of the day, we headed to dinner at a restaurant called Stoop and Stoop. I’d eaten here before back in 2012 and loved their chicken satay, so guess what I ate again! The whole meal was really delicious and we had a lot of fun laughing and chatting with Jess and Sibren.

After the meal Simon and I fell asleep in the car and when we woke we had arrived in Nijverdal, the town where Jess and Sibren live.

We woke up relatively early on the Saturday which was surprising after the early start and busy day the day before. We had a leisurely breakfast, chatting away about anything and everything before heading out for a walk. We drove through the town and headed up to the Nationaal Park De Sallandse Heuvelrug. The sun was shining and we have a lovely walk around.

After our walk we had a stroll through the town centre and lunch. It was really great to see where Jess was living and to see what her new normal was. All in all, The Netherlands is very similar to the UK. After lunch we went to a bar, played a lot of competitive pool, drank Heinekens and just had a lot of fun. So much fun, that I took no photos!

The rest of the evening was spent back at Jess and Sibren’s house making pizza’s in their pizza oven, drinking more beer and just having a laugh. All in all, a wonderful day! Thank you both!

 

The next day it was time to say goodbye. Simon and I jumped on a train and headed back to Amsterdam to do one last ‘must do’, a canal boat ride. It was sad to leave as it’s hard to say when Jess and I will get to see each other again, but knowing that she’s enjoying her new live and is loved up (to the max) made us very very happy for them both. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer until we all get to catch up again. Here’s some windmills we saw from the train.

Back in Amsterdam, we jumped on a small canal boat by a company called ‘Those Damn Boat Guys’. To be honest, the name sold it for me, but the fact that they travel through some of the smaller canals, it’s a smaller group on board and you get to bring food and drink for a picnic helped as well. The tour guide was really informative and funny though out the trip, and we saw so much of the city in a small amount of time. I really can’t recommend it enough.

After the boat ride we had a few hours to kill before we needed to head back to airport. Amsterdam is absolutely full of things to do, especially museums, but as the sun was shining we decided to just wander around some more and explore.

There are so many other places we’d like to visit in The Netherlands, including The Hague and Rotterdam, and with Jess and Sibren there, I have no doubt that we’ll be back again soon.

As part of our Middle Earth Trilogy package we would be heading off to see 2 caves, Waitomo and Ruakuri Caves on the hunt for Glow worms. We had heard that Waitomo was a little bit commercialised and slightly disappointing, so were glad that we got to see another cave during the tour too. We only spent 45 minutes in Waitomo and were unable to take any photos during our time in there. I do agree with this as the glow worms are used to the dark and therefore the likelihood is that people would use their flash, disturb them and then they would die. We were guided around the cave, saw lots of stalagmites and stalactites, as well as columns and pillars when the stalagmites and stalactites have joined together.

We were told about the lifecycle of the glow worm. There are 4 stages: egg, larvae, pupa and adult fly. The whole process only takes about 9 months, with the glow worm only living as an adult fly for 3 days. They are very poorly formed and do not have any mouth parts as an adult, so they reproduce and then die of starvation. Charming! The stage we were seeing them as was the larvae, which they stay in for usually around 6 months. The light in the glow worm is used to attract prey and is a form of bioluminescence, with the light being given off as a biproduct of the enzyme reactions during digestion.

After we walked around the cave and saw an impressive area called the Cathedral, which has EXCELLENT acoustics apparently (they have a Christmas concert in there and Katy Perry has sung in there). Unfortunately, none on our tour was brave enough to have a sing.  We could hear a waterfall whilst in the cave, which sounded VERY impressive. Turns out it is only a 1m drop (Simon got this right), but sounds much more impressive because of the acoustics.

We were lead into a very dark area and this is where we got our first sighting of the glow worms. Their white/blue lights twinkle like stars on the cave wall and you can see their feeding ‘strings’ hanging down from the animal to catch food. They only need to feed every 3 days or so whilst in this stage. From here we went in a boat and were taken through the most impressive part of the tour. We were pulled through a large cave absolutely covered in THOUSANDS of glow worms. Very magical and not something we will both forget any time soon. The boat excited the cave where the first explorers entered the cave onto the Waitomo River and our tour was over. As I said before, this tour was only 45 minutes and you could tell that it was so popular that they couldn’t afford to give anymore time to the tour, but we did enjoy it.

We had about 90 minutes until we were meeting for our 2 hour tour around Ruakuri Cave so we parked up where we would be meeting them and were hoping we could go for a walk along the Waitomo River and then have some lunch. Our of the Department of Conservation workers who was trimming the grass told us about a figure of 8 bush walk that would take us past the river so we decided to do that while we waited. This was the BEST decision ever. The walk took us through the Ruakuri Natural Bridge, through forested gorge and through narrow limestone bluffs and outcrops. There was a viewpoint in the natural tunnel which was pretty dark, but totally worth the walk and also a viewpoint of the natural tunnel from up high. We were so impressed by the walk. I’ll let the pictures show you why.

Our guide was about 15 minutes late for our Ruakuri Cave tour, so late in fact that I rang up to check where they were. We learnt about the name of the cave which means 2 dogs in Maori. Apparently the 2 explorers who discovered the cave had to kill 2 wild polynesian dogs to be able to get access to the cave so they named the cave in their honour. The cave is a very spiritual place for the Maori and a lot of historic Maori people have been buried in the original entrance to the cave, so we were going to enter through a manmade entrance. This was very impressive in itself and actually provides full wheelchair access. The cave was very dark initially, but our eyes started to adjust to the light so enough.

Around every corner was something cool. We saw more stalactites and stalagmites, as well as elephant ear formations, rock popcorn, rock carrots and rock broccoli. Hopefully the photos show why these names are suitable. We were allowed to take photos during our time in this cave so took full advantage, even though we couldn’t get a good photo of the glow worms, we did get a good photo of their feeding lines.

We saw an area called the ‘pretties’. See why it’s called that:

We were shown the pipe that allowed concrete and sand to enter the cave for construction of the paths inside the cave and also some fossils of shellfish.

The glow worms in this cave were not present in the same numbers as the Waitomo Cave, but we still got to see them and also we weren’t rushed on anywhere near as much as we were previously.

We learnt a lot about the law in New Zealand which is that you own the air and earth above and below you land, which means any cave is owned by the land owner and not the government. Apparently this caused some problems a while back as there was a law suite about air space.

The tour ended up only being about 1h45, but that was ok as we had really enjoyed it. We were glad we had taken the time to see another cave and not just gone for the touristy option of Waitomo. After our time in the caves we drove to Rotorua where we knew it would be smelly. I’ll keep that blog post separate.

Many people take an over night bus from Brisbane to Sydney, or stop only at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. We decided we didn’t want to be like those people. You know us, not conventional. In hindsight, I think we should have stopped on the Gold Coast, as quite a few people have said how much we would have loved it. When we return to Australia on another holiday (who knows when) I think we would like to spend some time around the Gold Coast, more time on the Sunshine Coast and head into the Outback and Uluru. But, that’s another trip.

So what did we decided to do? There is one bus that runs from Byron Bay straight down to Sydney, so we decided to take that bus, but stop twice catching the bus again the next day. Each time was meant to be for 24 hours (more on that later). Yamba had been recommended to us as a pretty little seaside town and so had Port Macquaire. The other option was Coffs Harbour, but everyone said Port Macquaire was nicer.

We arrived in Yamba at 2pm on a Saturday. Mistake number 1. 90% of the shops, cafes and bars shut at 1pm on Saturday and don’t open again until Monday. On arrival at our hostel (the YHA) we felt like we were in prison. We heard a woman getting a royal telling off by the lady on the front desk for apparently climbing out of her window, onto the roof and smoking a cigarette… not very plausible. There were signs EVERYWHERE that said we were liable for a $1800 fine if the smoke alarm goes off by mistake for any reason (these reasons included: using hair straighteners, having a too hot shower, spraying bug spray, spraying deodorant.. list of ridiculousness went on.

I had heard about a free walking guide that is produced by the museum so I downloaded that and off we set for coastal walk number 2, in as many days. The map told us the walk was a 3km circuit, with some hills and would hit some of the highlights of Yamba on the way. We walked along the marina and the Clarence river which was very pretty.

We saw a very large pelican.

After this the walk took us around to a board which told us all about the history of the local breakwaters. I had to drag Simon away… I had no idea he was so interested in them. Yawn! We saw a few pretty beaches around here, before seeing the area that had been quarried for the breakwaters.

Some people were staring out to see, so we asked what they had seen and they told us there was a pod of dolphins. YAY! We will never get tired of seeing whales and dolphins in the wild.

We walked up to the lighthouse, which was a little underwhelming in comparison to the one in Cape Byron, but provided some lovely views out over the area.

Our walk then carried us along the coast, past a few more pretty beaches and a cenotaph. All very lovely, but honestly… that was it.

I don’t know what it is about Yamba, but we both weren’t feeling it. We returned to town to try and figure out what we were going to do for dinner. Our options were severely limited!!! We ate scrambled eggs with bel peppers, sweetcorn and packet pasta. Oh my… it was weird. I promise you all, we have been eating REALLY well for most of our trip, but that was a low point. The kitchen was a state as well, people were just leaving washing up everywhere and the sides were dirty. Not ideal.. AT ALL!!!

The next day, we woke up and went back to one of the beaches to catch some sun and read our books before our bus. We had a lovely smoothie back at our hostel just before the bus came and off we went.

Here’s some history about breakwaters for anyone who’s interested before I move onto Port Macquaire:

Our next stop was Port Macquaire. The trip was meant to be 4.5 hours on the greyhound, but turned into 6.5 hours due to a head on collision on the motorway about 5 minutes up from us. The last we heard, both people were alive, but in a critical condition. Here’s hoping they’re ok!

We arrived in Port Macquaire quite late, too late too do anything except find food. We found the best deal in Australia. $5.95 for a large pizza at dominos. That is an absolute steal over here! We devoured our pizzas and had a lovely chat with the people in our hostel. Every single one of them was just so friendly and chatty and we spent a good amount of time enjoying everyones company. Already wishing, we had come a day earlier so we could have attended their Halloween party.

We went to bed and got up to do, guess what?!, a coastal walk the next day. This one, I was super excited about though. I can’t say why, I just was already enjoyed Port Macquaire more than Yamba and there seemed to be a lot more going on here. I was right to be excited.

We went down to the start of the walk, Town Beach, where we enjoyed a smoothie to start off the walk. They were EXCELLENT!

From here the walk began. I won’t go into all the detail, as you will very quickly get bored of my coastal walk ramblings, but I’ll show you some of the highlights.

It then rained pretty badly and we had to hide under Gum trees for about 20 minutes.

Our final stop, was guess what?! A lighthouse! A very cute little one this time.

The walk was 9km, so we decided to take the bus back to town from this point, as we had a date with a koala hospital!!! 🙂 🙂

The koala hospital in Port Macquaire is the only one of its kind in the world, and it’s free! They take in koalas that have been found by locals, rehabilitate, treat and release them if possible. We arrived at 3pm so were there for a free tour of the hospital and it was so good! I would recommend this to anyone who visits this area.

The first thing I was surprised by, is how many koalas are infected with Chlamydia that come into the hospital. The strain of Chlamydia that affects them, primarily affects their eyes and can cause blindness in many.

The hospital is completely funded by donations, receiving nothing from the government. However, they have managed to save and now have a koala ambulance! Isn’t this the cutest thing!?

We went around the park with a British lady, who has been living in Oz for a long time now, and heard about all the koalas that are now living permanently in their care. We were unable to see the koalas in rehabilitation as they needed as minimal contact with humans as possible during their time in the hospital.

This little guy stood out to me. His name was Xavier and he is now completely blind. He struggles to eat and has to be syringe fed soya milk a few times a day as a supplement. Most koalas are lactose intolerant and receive all of their nutrients from the eucalyptus they eat.

We saw lots of other koalas on our way around who had been in road traffic accidents and were blind through severe chlamydia infections. Here’s just a few photos of the many I took.

We just loved it here. The centre is made up of 170 volunteers and they are all doing such an amazing job to look after these amazing animals. Well done!!

After this, we popped into the Roto timber house next door, which is a house that has been preserved in the area that used to be inhabited by the Flynn family. It was interesting to see a house from 1891 and see the style of living at the time. The volunteer who told us a bit about the house was from Whitby, but had been in Australia for 48 years now.

We walked back to our hostel, ready to catch the greyhound bus to Sydney and our 22 hours in Port Macquaire were over.

So… 24 hours in Yamba vs. 22 hours in Port Macquaire. I think you can see where this is going. We loved Port Macquaire and didn’t love Yamba. There was just so much to see and do in Port Macquaire and the feel of the place was just so much more positive and welcoming. We could have easily spent more time here and explored more of the local area whereas in Yamba we had done it all after our 3km, 1 hour walk. My advice would be, stop in Yamba if you have you own car and can get out of there after a few hours, but don’t stop if you are relying on public transport and never ever EVER visit on a Saturday or Sunday.

We arrived in Byron Bay with very high expectations. So many people rave about how they loved their time in Byron Bay and ended up staying far longer than they planned to.

Our Greyhound bus came in relatively late on the first day and we only had 2 nights to enjoy Byron Bay. We got to our hostel and were pleased to see that our 2 beds in our dorm room were the only 2 that were occupied. We just crossed our fingers and hoped that this would stay the same throughout our time there. The hostel was obviously designed for partiers, as when we arrived there were quite a lot of people feeling sorry for themselves asleep on the sofas in the common area. Bear in mind, it was about 4pm by this point. We got our beach blanket and books and headed down to the beach (2 minutes out the back of the hostel) and relaxed on the beach for a few hours. What happened next was quite surprising… we hadn’t seen it in a while… it rained. We had planned to go for a walk that evening to see the sunset, but the rain kept on coming, so we stayed in, made food and then went for a walk around the town after the rain had stopped. Saw this funny sign too! haha.

Byron Bay centre is really lovely. There are lots of little boutique shops, restaurants and cafes that you can enjoy. We found a frozen yoghurt bar that was open after dinner and enjoyed some frozen yoghurt topped with fresh fruit. Yummy!! We decided to head to bed and get up early the next day to do the lighthouse walk.

What we have learnt recently is that however long someone says a walk will take, add about 30-50% more. As many of you will know, Simon and I are really quick walkers, but for some reason everyone underestimates the length of the walks in the area they live in. We set off early on the lighthouse walk, expecting it to take us until lunch time (there and back). We got back around 2pm, but it was a beautiful walk.

It takes around 30 minutes to get out of the town and to get onto the coastal path and I think we ended up taking a detour that we didn’t need to take down to a viewpoint. I’m glad we did though as we saw some Humpback Whales again and got to watch some of the surf schools.

(The whale is the splash)

We carried on our way along the coastal path and ‘bumped’ into the most Easterly point of mainland Australia. We had no idea that we were near to this and were pretty chuffed with ourselves when we saw the sign. On our way we stopped, saw some lizards and did some seated dips… as you do!

The wifi is really good here.. so you’re going to get some bonus shots of some wildlife on the way.

The next stop was the lighthouse itself. The Cape Byron Lighthouse was built in the 19th Century and is a pretty good looking lighthouse. We saw some more Humpback Whales from this viewpoint and enjoyed the shade the lighthouse offered us. It was a VERY VERY hot day.

We walked back the opposite way to Byron Bay and along a path which lead us to see turtles, a pod of dolphins and even more Humpback whales. We were truly spoilt with our wildlife this day. And then… around the corner… was the most beautiful beach we had seen in our time in Australia. We were both getting a little bit fed up of beautiful beach after beautiful beach (I know… spoilt Brats aren’t we), but this one really was something magical. Simon didn’t want to leave, he was captivated by it. See what you think for yourselves.

(Humpback – hopefully quite clear)

(Pod of dolphins in the middle)

Once we returned to Byron Bay we found a lovely cafe called Byron Fresh, ordered some cold drinks and some baked goods and set up with some semi decent wifi for the afternoon. This is what Byron Bay life is meant to be like. Chilling out and enjoying an iced latte. To top it all off, an excellent musician played for about an hour. His name was Austin Thomas and he played covers but also some originals, mainly about backpacking and traveling the world. We really enjoyed his music during our relax. https://www.facebook.com/pg/austinthomasoriginals/about/?ref=page_internal

The next morning we were going to be leaving Byron Bay and to end Byron Bay in the way it’s designed for, we relaxed and did some New Zealand research on the last morning. Simon has been obsessively reading the Jack Reacher books recently, so enjoyed some more time to read that.

So… our views on Byron Bay. I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed by Byron Bay. I can see why people may end up staying for a while, maybe even to work, as it is a very laid back town. By Byron Bay we had started to be a little more conscious of money and I think if we’d had a little more to play with in terms of drinks and eating out then maybe we could have enjoyed it even more. You will start to notice a coastal walk trend over the next few days as it’s the most enjoyable free activity on the East Coast. The timings of our buses meant we didn’t get a huge amount of time here and to be honest we wanted to make the most of an empty dorm room (yes! It stayed empty the whole time) and watched movies and sorted out photos. There is a day trip to the town of Nimbin, from Byron, which we would have liked to have done if we’d had another day here, and more money,  but both are limited at the moment.

Well not really big lights, big city. Brisbane is actually a relatively small city, but for us, not having been in a city since Hong Kong this was quite a culture shock.

We arrived by train and headed towards our hostel. We were going to be staying at the Brisbane City YHA. We were able to check in early and had been given a disabled room so there was an ensuite giant wet room. We weren’t going to complain as we expected shared bathroom facilities and had only paid for that.

Simon gets frustrated with me as I am always super eager to head out and start exploring straight away. Reluctantly he was dragged out within about 30 minutes. We signed up for a free walking tour the next day and also for $2 taco night that night before we left. Freebies and cheap food is the way forward at the moment.

We had heard that the Southbank area of Brisbane was a good place to walk, so we headed off that way. Brisbane is a river city, cut in half by Brisbane River, so we needed to cross a bridge first to get over to Southbank. We walked along the promenade and enjoyed taking in the views of the CBD on the other side of the river, as well as the pretty parklands of Southbank. I won’t talk about this area too much as we went back to Southbank on our walking tour the next day, so i’ll explain more then. However, we did bump into a man, who took our photo in front of the Brisbane sign and then proceeded to tell us about a free ferry we could take! Yay! Free!!

The Jacaranda trees are blooming at the moment in Australia and they are so beautiful. You’ll see that a lot of our pictures have a lot of them snuck into the photo somehow.

By this point, Simon was hungry… we were at risk of hangry Simon appearing so we went to 7/11 and got lunch snacks (sausage rolls, muffins and coffees). We sat by the lagoon on Southbank (I think it might be called the beach) and enjoyed our food. Fortunately, we were only about 5 minutes away from one of the free ferry stops so walked towards that in time to get the city hopper ferry. Our plan was to ride the ferry up as far as we could go and then take it back to the CBD (central business district) to meet up with our friend from Magnetic island, Sophie.

The ferry took us under the Story Bridge, up to New Farm and then turned around and came back. We were on the ferry for about an hour and it was a great way to see the city and to get a feel for the layout. I would recommend this to anyone who is visiting Brisbane. After the ferry we walked from Eagle Pier up to Queen Street Mall to meet Sophie. We would need to visit Queen Street Mall again later on as we both needed jeans, it was getting a little chilly in the evenings and soon enough we would be in Melbourne, which is far chillier, and then new Zealand.

We met up with Sophie and headed off for a coffee. This coffee shop was so posh!!! Even Sophie said ‘I’m so sorry if this coffee costs you $45’. Haha. It didn’t. It was actually one of the more reasonably priced coffees we’d had since being in Australia. Looks can be deceiving. We had a lovely catch up. It’s really interesting to us to hear about ‘life on a working visa’. I have to admit i’m glad we’ve done it this way as it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun having to find work.

After our coffee, Umi had recommended that we take the city cat ferry up to Bulimba further up the river. Off we went, using our go cards to save us money (like an oyster card). We arrived in Bulimba and thought… Oh there’s nothing here… but there was, you just had to walk quite a way up the street. I couldn’t believe it, there were restaurants and cafes selling every type of food you could imagine! Vietnamese, Greek, Italian, Japanese… the list goes on. I found it hard to believe that wuite a small suburb would need so many retaurants. We decided to stop and have a little sushi snack which was very tasty. After a good walk around Bulimba we headed back to the city cat and got off at the CBD to go shopping. We said goodbye to Sophie for the day, but we would be seeing her again tomorrow for an open air viewing of Sully on Southbank.

Simon and I proceded to spend the next hour and a half looking for jeans. Those of you who know me well, know that I HATE shopping with a passion. I have no desire to walk around the shops and waste my time. As it became increasingly obvious that we were going to be unsuccessful that day, we gave up and went back to the hostel. Spotting a few sights on the way.

The sunset from the YHA rooftop.

We had each purchased 2 $2 tacos so went down to the cafe to enjoy those. Tacos in Australia are actually fajitas. I have no idea why they call them tacos, it’s just confusing for everyone. Fajitas are quite expensive to make here as you need to buy a lot of bits and usually the wraps cost at least $4 for a pack so we were definitely on to a winner. We enjoyed our tacos, I mean fajitas and headed back to the room. We’d walked a lot so decided to have an early night ready for our walking tour the next morning.

The next morning we woke up for our free walking tour, completed by the Brisbane greeters. The Brisbane greeters are a volunteer group of Brisbanites (as they like to call themselves) who want to show off their city to visitors. The YHA had organised this tour for us so all we had to do was go downstairs at the right time. We were split into groups of 5 or 6 and off we went for our lady guide. I can’t remember her name…whoops. We were with 2 German girls and 1 Dutch girl, who were the most unchatty people I think we’ve met during our time here, so we got the guide pretty much to ourselves and they just followed us around.

We headed through the CBD, this time with a fresh pair of eyes, being shown interesting things and being told interesting facts. Every new building that’s built in Brisbane has to invest 2.5% of the cost of the building into art on, in, or around that building. We had a look at a few pieces on our way around, including this giant kangaroo.

We were also told to look at all the signal boxes on the road. Local artists can pay the council to paint on the signal boxes and their art will stay on the box from 4 weeks to 4 years. There were some interesting boxes around, but I didn’t take a photo of any of them. Whoops. I was saying to Simon today, it seems like Australia are trying to create landmarks and buildings that will last and that are really appealing to look at. The result is a very modern looking city, which in 20-30 years will be absolutely full of art. It would be so interesting to see Brisbane again in the future as it is a city that has come so far in such a short space of time. More on that later.

We crossed over to Southbank again crossing over on the Kurilpa bridge. This bridge won the award of world transport building over the year in 2011. Fun fact for you. We think it looks like a Spider, but the shape has a purpose, the bridge supports itself by leaning onto itself in multiple places.

Our lady guide told us about a display in the library that was showing aboriginal possum ‘blankets’. I’m not sure if that’s the right word. When an aboriginal person is born they are given a decorated possum skin and throughout their lives more possum skills are added at monumental life stages and events. When the Europeans settled in Australia, a large number of these were taken from the aboriginal people (not sure why). This display was to share this tradition with visitors, but also to the descendants of the aboriginal people so that they can be more in touch with the history of their families. We went in and had a quick look, but were unable to take many photos. They were stunning though and you could see how these would create an amazing memento for the person of their life events.

We walked along Southbank, looking at the beach, the cultural centre, the rainforest, the nepalese pagoda and so much more along the way. We had seen most of this previously, the day before, but were happy for a little bit more information. Apparently the Nepalese pagoda (pictured above) was built for the World Expo that took place in Brisbane in 1988, the people loved it so much it has become a permanent feature. The site of Southbank used to be where all the warehouses were in the city, this was then rejuvenated as the site for the World Expo and has since been made into the current parklands. We saw a lot of school students around the area and the guide explained its because they will be talking about urban development and this place is perfect, as most places have only been built on once so far.

We also heard a lot about how Brisbane came to be a settlement at all. Many convicts and criminals were sent to Australia as a form of punishment from the British, but also other European countries. These people were sent to Sydney primarily, but if they were still ‘naughty’ (secondary offenders) they decided they needed somewhere new to send them. Someone headed North and determined to area of Brisbane to be suitable and he then named the river after Sir Thomas Brisbane the Governor of New South Wales, the area then adopted the name because of its location. The first secondary offenders arrived in 1824 and the city was opened for settlement in 1842. I just CANNOT get my head around how recent all of this was. It has been an ongoing realisation of mine during our time here, how new all of their history is here. I’m still not sure I fully appreciate it, having come from a continent with so much history.

We then headed back over the river to the CBD and went into the Queensland University of Technology. I thought, ‘this is a bit strange! why are we going here?’, but actually it was really interesting. The University backs onto the Botanical Gardens (I didn’t inflict this on Simon this time) and houses the old Governors House. The most interesting stop though was to this giant interactive screen inside one of the buildings where they display information about space, dinosaurs and all sorts else. Really good fun.

We said goodbye to our Brisbanite lady guide after this and headed to the Queens Street Mall where we both were able to buy jeans successfully this time. YAY!! I was fully expecting to pay $50 for mine, got to the tills and they were $10!! So happy!!!

We somehow bumped into the City Hall and knew that you could go up the clock tower for free, so in we went. There is a museum in the City Hall as well, so we had a look around that for about 45 minutes before our allotted time to go up the clock tower. The museum was really interesting and had a display about the population of Brisbane, telling us lots of interesting facts about the demographic of the city. Going up the clock tower was surprisingly interesting and we had some great views back out over the city from up there.

We quickly headed back to the YHA to get changed as we were heading out to meet Sophie and to go to the open air cinema (sponsored by Ben and Jerry’s) to watch Sully. We had an email saying that we could get free Ben and Jerry’s. Apparently the email lied but we managed to get some anyway!! Wooo! Also, they had some wine tasting so we partook in that as well. The wine was awful! We definitely won’t be visiting that vineyard in New Zealand. We had a really lovely evening, eating nibbles, watching and movie and then having some drinks afterwards with Sophie in the West End. The views across Brisbane that evening were beautiful too.

Our time in Brisbane had come to an end and we were leaving the next morning for Byron Bay. We really enjoyed Brisbane and after all the small towns and coastal spots of the last 6 weeks, it was a welcomed changed. Bring on Sydney and Melbourne.