Redland Bay and Brisbane

We had been looking forward to staying with our friends Meg, Lee, Carly and Sophi for ages.  Kids were so excited and we had a great time.  The kids just played and played.  Lots of time was spent on the bikes and scooters.  Charlotte and Carly were even crazy enough to get in the pool on numerous occasions, even one morning at 7am.  I braved the cold water once but that was enough.  We were so lucky and got beautiful weather the whole time, lovely and sunny.
Meegan was a very bad girl and introduced me to the True Blood books and the TV series.  Many an hour was spent with these.  A great easy read.  Oh what a hard few days we had sitting by the pool.  Lucky for me I have a kindle with 1000 plus books on it.  Enough to keep me going for years!  It was so nice to stay in an actual house.  Don't get me wrong, I love the caravan and our new life, but do sometimes miss the comforts of a house (and the space).

Jake and Sophi

Out looking for turtles, with a few neighbourhood kids.

Charlotte and Carly

Meg had been to a local winery called Siromet and just had to take us.  We spent a lovely lunch and afternoon eating drinking and listening to some live music.  Plus it was kinda cool when we spotted two Masterchef contestants also eating there, as most people know I love that show, and of course so does Charlotte.

Mmmmm wine and pie...yum

Our little choco holic!

Lovely wine

Dancing girls

Meg and Lee are so lucky to have found this great place with a great pool.  Charlotte was a little mermaid!

Two little buddies

We thought we should actually see a bit of Brissie while we were here, not just sit around eating, drinking and socialising.  So we took the kids into Brisbane city to have a look around.  First stop was Southbank.  This really great man made beach, lagoon and park area right on the river.  Kids had heaps of fun playing in the playground and at the sandy 'beach'.  We went on a lovely two hour river cruise and got to see all the sights of Brisbane on the river, was great.  Also learnt a bit of the history of Brisbane.  Just a really nice relaxing day, other than parking, which is a nightmare with such a high car, all car parks are too short for us!  Then we went and check out the CBD which looked pretty much like all big city CBD's.

On the cruise

Kids had fun climbing on these steel sculptures in Brisbane CBD

The park lands had these gorgeous archways with really pretty purple flowers growing along them.

The next day we decided to go back to the city and explore some more.  We went to this look out at Kangaroo Point that overlooked the city, awesome view and a great place to have a walk.  We then climbed down these steep stairs to the bottom of the cliffs and walked along the rivers edge.  Its a really popular spot for exercise and climbing.  We stopped for awhile and watched some climbers trying to scale the cliffs.  The kids were sure that Uncle Ben would have been able to do it easily.

It was a gorgeous sunny day so we went for a picnic at the botanical gardens at Mount Coot - tha.  Mark has always been mad keen on Bonsai and they had an awesome bonsai house, Mark had a fabulous time.  Some of the trees were really old, amazing what they can do.  The kids had a ball with a special section of the gardens for kids where they get to do a seek and find of all these stone animals and interesting things.  Entertained them and us for ages.  Its a great shady gardens that would also be great in the summer.

Charlotte having a music lesson

Mount Coot - Tha is just adjacent to Brisbane and if you go to the look out you can see all over Brissie.  What a view.  We seemed so high up.  We liked it so much that we stayed for dinner in brissie and then went back at night, and we are so glad we did.  Even more spectacular at night, photo doesn't do it justice.

We were lucky enough to be able to park our van in Meg and Lees front yard.  We are so grateful to the friends who have let us stay along the way.  Meg and Lee live in Redland Bay, about half an hour South of Brisbane.  Its a lovely spot, you can ride your bikes down to the bay area and look for Du gongs, not that we saw any!

The ferry to Stradbroke Island, we were going to go but we kinda got side tracked.

We had such a great time in Brisbane that we have decided to come back.  We heading inland and South to Mount Barney for a week or so then back to Redland Bay for a few more nights.