Visit Brisbane

Just a week after my friend David left Brisbane to return to Malaysia, my parents came to visit. This gave me the opportunity to see Brisbane and it's surrounds as a tourist as we barely have time to do that on our own.

Mum and Dad arrived on Wednesday morning at the Gold Coast airport. I was meant to take the day off but had a meeting which I could not miss. Luckily, my brother Keith was visiting from Sydney as well and he was able to pick Mum and Dad up from the airport. I was able to get off work by midday and we did a brief sightseeing tour then.

A short tour of the UQ campus. Keith made the comment that, from this picture, people may think he studied here.

Mt Coot-tha summit overlooking Brisbane CBD below

The next two days, we parked at Kangaroo Point (as it was free parking!) and did a long walk to South Bank and Brisbane CBD area. It was especially windy on the second day and with the low temperatures, it felt very close to the single digit temperatures! So much for being in the Sunshine State!

 

South Bank - Keith's favourite place in Brisbane!

We walked from Kangaroo Point along the Story Bridge (shown behind) to Brisbane CBD

The Liverpool football team were in town doing their tour

Roma St Parklands

Another visitor rescued this baby possum from the birds and placed it in the tree

Li-Ann then joined us for dinner at the Eat Street Markets in Hamilton. Pity it was so cold and windy, otherwise it would have been a lot more enjoyable!

On the weekend, we took a drive to the Sunshine Coast. First stop, being the Glass House Mountains area. We took a hike up Mt Ngungun, which was 2.8km return trip up to the summit which was 253m above sea level. And after checking into our accommodation in Caloundra, a nice relaxing stroll along the beach.

Steep climb to the summit

I'm on top of the world!

Awesome view from the summit. That's Mt Tibrogargan

At the lookout viewing point

Low tide at Bulcock beach

After a nice dinner at Hog's Breathe, we went to bed with a good night's sleep. I got up early for a 12km run along the beach before we checked out. We then headed to Mooloolaba harbour for a whale watching cruise. It was pretty windy that and the skipper gave the tour group the option of re-scheduling our respective bookings to another day. As my parents weren't local, we decided to go ahead with the cruise.

Well, as we got out to the open water, it got a bit rough and more than half of the tour group got seasick. Myself, Li-Ann and Keith included. There was a point where I could feel my legs turning into jelly and I was feeling as though I was going to pass out. I sat down and tried to sleep, which helped pass the time. Mum and Dad were okay though. We didn't manage to see any whales and the cruise company offered a refund as part of their guarantee. We did however, manage to see a few dolphins.

All happy before the boat left the harbour

Mum and Dad flew back to Malaysia that night. It was quite a long drive from Sunshine Coast back to Brisbane and then to Gold Coast airport. We did have a good few days though, it's nice to have some family bonding time, which we often take for granted before. Now that we're in different parts of the world, we can't wait for the next one!