Brisbane Beckons

Friday

We aren't taking the internet to Queensland so we'll be going quiet now until sometime around Monday 21st.

We're off to Brisbane on the flying kangaroo tomorrow. The cases are on the bed. We're thinking baggage allowance and liquids in the hand luggage and leg room. The memories of Heathrow to Sydney are still uncomfortably fresh in our minds, I'd much rather see the outside of an airport than anything waiting inside the doors. As Ella is still under two years old, she can fly without us buying her a seat, so it's on our lap all the way. It's only an hour and a half, we'll manage.

I've uploaded a map of Queensland and drawn a squiggly line to show you roughly where we're going. It wasn't meant to be squiggly, I just don't know how to use the software. Let's hope the pilot has a better grasp of his (software).

Brisbane is the state capital of Queensland. We've never been there before but hear it's more of a big country town than a city. We're hiring a car and driving to the Gold Coast in the middle of next week, which is kind of Las Vegas by the sea; not somewhere you go to relax and more popular with Japanese tourists than the Aussies. It's where all the Aussie theme parks are; Wet and Wild, Dreamworld, Seaworld, that kind of thing. It's like my worst nightmare but it's somewhere I thought we should have a look at anyway. I mean, Vegas is like your worst nightmare but that doesn't mean you don't want to have a look at it.

After that we return the car to the airport and fly to Hervey Bay for the boat transfer onto Fraser Island, a world heritage-listed sand island (the biggest in the world) with apparently spectacular scenery. There are no roads, only sand tracks and only 4WD vehicles are allowed. Fraser island could go either way. We can't join an organised tour with Ella because she just wouldn't put up with it. So either we hire a 4WD and work out how to drive it on sand or we take a day each to disappear off in a minibus with other, sane travellers, leaving the other alone with Ella at the resort.

The centre of the island is rainforest and there are some beautiful lakes, which is just as well because you can't swim in the sea because of the sharks.

Oh yes, and you mustn't feed the dingoes either.

So it's three nights on the island and back to Sydney next Sunday. No doubt we'll have lots to catch up on.