By the time we got up this morning the rain had come to a halt and the sun shone for about ten minutes before hiding back behind the clouds. After breakfast, the first task of the day was to return our hire car to Avis. We planned to return it to Coolangatta airport, which is south of Brisbane, only about 35 minutes from Ray & Lynda’s place and significantly closer and easier than the city office in Brisbane. Why not return it to Brisbane airport you might be thinking? After all we are departing from there this evening. Therein lies the problem. We are not flying until 23.05 tonight and the car has to be returned by 12.00, thus we would have to spend 11 hours hanging around at the airport. Ray and Lynda had kindly offered to take us to Brisbane sightseeing and then on to the airport for our check in time of 20.00, so we were able to get the car back first thing, then have the rest of the day to sightsee.
After dropping off the car, we headed for Burleigh Heads, a place where Lynda used to go as a child, which is situated at the estuary of the Burleigh River. Like most places on this coast it has fabulous soft sandy beaches and rolling waves great for surfing. We walked up to the lookout points on the Heads and as it was not raining, it gave a great view up to Surfers Paradise and down to Tweed Heads, where we stayed a few days ago. As you will have guessed, it was time for more Kodak moments as not only were there views up and down the beaches, but also of the flora and fauna growing on the Heads.
Once back to beach level we headed back to Ray’s for lunch and the final packing. We are right on the limits of our baggage allowance and still have one more port of call to make, so we need to be very creative how we pack in Hong Kong.
After lunch we stopped at the RACQ motoring offices to pick up some free maps of Queensland and Australia so we can plot where we have been and bore you all to death when we get home. From there we headed towards Brisbane, but before arriving there we turned off to visit a Koala Sanctuary and conservation area. This place was essentially untouched forest full of tall Eucalyptus trees, home to Koalas. There was also a sanctuary where sick or abandoned Koalas are looked after and thankfully there were a small number of them clearly on view. In the trees outside, there were apparently lots of them, but they are very shy animals and almost impossible to spot in the tall trees.
The ones inside were very obliging and let us take loads of photographs whilst they were feeding and sleeping. These animals are undeniably cute and cuddly, but I still wouldn’t like to get clawed by one of them. The sanctuary and conservation area was free to enter and would be a fantastic place to bring small children as you can get right up close to the koalas. Just as we were driving out a couple of walabys jumped up the road towards us an posed for pictures.
From the Koalas we went into Brisbane and walked along the South Bank and over the river. It is almost impossible to believe that just a few months ago the areas where we walked were submerged as there is little or no sign of flood damage. The city has made a fantastic job of cleaning up and getting back on its feet. We strolled past the State Parliament building, then down into the botanical gardens, then up into the city centre and the Mall. It was now starting to get dark and it had just started to drizzle with rain. From there we walked up to the old Treasury building, which is now a casino apparently, then across the river returning to the South Bank.
There is a very large Ferris wheel on the riverside, rather like the London eye, but turns considerably faster than its London counterpart.
We were unsure what culinary delights Qantas had in store for us so we decided to eat in a Turkish restaurant that Ray & Lynda had frequented before and it was a good dining experience having never having eaten Turkish food before.
From the restaurant, we were chauffeured directly to Brisbane airport just in time to commence check in for our flight at 23.05. As we stood in the queue it was quite obvious that the check in staff were not taking any prisoners tonight as they were the most poe faced bunch of Qantas staff I have ever seen. We were checked in by an Australian Asian chap whos first words were’ I’ll need to weigh your hand baggage before you check your bags’. Not so much as a good evening sir or kiss my ****. This guy must have come from the same check in school as the miserable bitch from Gatwick. I knew my rucksack was well over, so it came as no surprise when he wanted something taken out from it. Fortunately, one of our suitcases was a couple of Kilos below weight so I took some old paperwork out of the rucksack and put it in hold baggage. Fortunately I had kept my camera on the trolley otherwise we’d have been in the clag. Not sure what’s going to happen when we leave Hong Kong having accumulated more rubbish. Apart from that incident, the flight left bang on time and thanks to a strong tailwind, we arrived in Hong Kong almost 30 minutes early. However, it was just as well we ate dinner before going to the airport as the on board food was really not up to scratch and the roll at breakfast would have been more at home in a decorative brick wall as it was like a lump of stone. Good entertainment though, we watched The Kings Speech.
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