Brisbane & up the Queensland coast

Brisbane is delightful.  I didn’t even stop here in 1979-80: at the time, Queensland was under the conservative Bjelke-Petersen regime, and Brisbane was probably the un-hippest city in Australia.

How times change. Brisbane is a thriving, forward-looking kind of place.

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On the Brisbane River

We visit the Queensland Art Gallery. It’s one of the best we’ve ever been to. And we’ve been to lots of galleries around the world.

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QAG

I love this work, Under the Jacaranda.

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Cleanup in gallery 11!

I especially like the whimsical touch of the real jacaranda blossoms on the floor under the painting.

Lots of native art as well.
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Poles apart
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Me, a loud shirt, and a Brisbane city square
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Maria and some kangaroos made from car parts…
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…and the Real Thing
You can call me ‘Joey’.

We drive up the coast to Noosa Heads. This is too overcrowded for us. We continue to less populated beaches.

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Palmerston Cove

Many are nearly deserted – one blessing of living in a sparsely-populated land.

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Palmerston Cove

We follow the advice of a man we meet in a caravan park, who suggests a few picturesque places to stay on our way north.

Rather than spend every day driving, we find a spot we like and spend a few nights there and relax during the day.

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Horseshoe Bay

Still, driving is  fun. We observe the scenery. We listen to ABC while we drive. It’s a lot like listening to the CBC. (Except for the Australian accent, of course.)

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Horseshoe Bay

It’s advised to swim beneath a pair of yellow and red flags due to ‘marine stingers‘.

This is enough to keep me out of the water for the duration. Their effects  range from ‘a slight prickle’ to ‘agonizing death’.

Doesn’t stop Maria, though.

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Horseshoe Bay

This is Horseshoe Bay, near Bowen, QLD. Bowen is famous for its mangoes (!)

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Horseshoe Bay
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Horseshoe Bay

We find that traveling in our own vehicle, we have fewer opportunities for taking photos – just because ‘a body in motion tends to remain in motion’ and all that.

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Horseshoe Bay

We enjoy staying in caravan parks. They’re clean and quiet. The inhabitants are usually pensioners escaping the southern winter.

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Horseshoe Bay

Everyone is extremely friendly. We conjecture a drinking game where you have to down a shot of Bundaberg rum every time someone says ‘no worries’; we’d be legless by midmorning.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Queensland

Australia is a birdwatcher’s paradise. Everywhere we go are parakeets, kookaburras, and other avian exotica. (This clearly marks us out as tourists, that we think of parakeets and kookaburras as ‘exotic’.)

For the first time ever, we actually pay for an iPhone app: Morecombe and Stewart’s Birds of Australia.