Surfer's Paradise !!!

Photo: Side of Surfers Paradise, reaching up to the Goldcoast side. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of fine sand and surfing waves...

Photo: Part of Surfers Paradise, reaching up to the Brisbane side. View taken from the Q tower, some 320 meters above ground level.

Photo: There are some surfing hotties around :-) ... where's the underwear anyway ?!?

Photo: Lieven sitting on his Sufers Paradise Throne :-)

Hi mates, today we make it all the way up to the Goldcoast. I am getting up at 5:30 am because the trip will take me about 4 hours to get there with the public transport. Distances in Australia are enormous ! First I have to catch the 680 bus, then change on the next block to the 690 bus, which takes me to Sandgate train station. From there it goes to Central station. From central station we take the Goldcoast Express train to Nerang station. From there the bus to Surfers Paradise bus station. .....And all the way back on the same day, pwoe ....

Anyway, it is worth the trip. The train trip to the Goldcoast is really not interesting, just riding through the bush. The bus trip from Nerang station is quite nice because you see all the different neighbourhoods. It is a bit like the Las Vegas of Australia. Villa neighbourhood on the banks of the river there, eventually leading to the skyscrapers located at the beach side.

Before I visit surfers paradise beach, I accidentally get of at the highest skyscraper there, which features the Q-deck. The Q-deck is an observation deck on the 77th and 78th floor. The elevator takes us up in just about 40 seconds !!! The view on surfers paradise and the gold coast is awesome. You can have a look in the pictures above. It gives also a good impression where I am because I do not have a map.

In the afternoon, I go to the main street of surfers paradise. It is really a commercial centre and full of people. It has a quite American atmosphere. There are a lot of people, even with the bad weather and the off-season. People are also a bit more hot and fashionable over here. It is really a hot spot for the young cool surfing people. Pfff, indeed it must be paradise here in summer time ! :-)

After some time on the beach, and the sunset, it is time to go home. Unfortunately the weather has changed into grey overcast with some strong wind. It is also a bit chilly, lets say 18 degrees feels cold overhere haha, but spring has just begun...

This is probably also a nice place to live. Appartments of 90 square meters go away with 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, living and kitchen and private parking space for about 500 000 AUD, which is about 260 000 Euro. That is quite reasonable for having the parking space, and shared pool and spa and a lovely view on the beach and coastline... who knows... who knows...

Tourist tour to Moreton Island !

Photo: Picture taken from the top of the sand hill. The smaller boat is our guiding tour boat, the big one is the ferry which departs from Brisbane and which brings the 4x4 jeeps on the island. If you want you can drive around the island on the beach with your 4x4.

Photo: snorkelling tour around the ship wrecks of Moretone Island.

Hi, this morning I embarked a small boat with another 40 people, to have a tourist day trip to Moreton Island. The island is about the size of Flanders, and harvest a wealth of nature and huge sand dunes, lovely beaches, a desert and a blue lagoon. Unfortunately we will only have a trip around the coast today.

We take off at about 9:00 o'clock and over a coffee and a breakfast I have a nice chat with one of the boatsmen, who has lived in Sweden for one year. The island is about 30 kilometer off from the mainland, so it takes a while before we get there. Today I have taken off my watch, I do not keep track of the time.

The first thing we do is getting on a wet suite, and have a snorkelling session in the sea around some six ship wrecks. There are put there on purpose by the government for creating a tourist attraction, and to build a kind of artificial coral reef. In fact it is a marvellous snorkelling tour. We see hundreds of tropical fishes. Because of the tide we drift through the ship wrecks and are then picked up again by the boat.

We have a lovely lunch on the boat with all sorts of sea food: REAL crab, yummie !!!, prawns, etc...

Then we continue to the top smaller end of the island, and in the meanwhile we see some kind of young whale mammals. When we return back to Tangalooma peer, we also see turtles of about 1.5 meter big. We also meet a couple of dolphins. Arriving at the shore, we can have an hour off at the beach. I take the opportunity to climb one of the very steep sand hills. It takes about 20 minutes to get to the top ! They must be some 40 meters high or something. From the top you can really take good pictures of the ship wrecks and the people who try to reach the top but do not have the condition to do that, especially the bodybuilding type of men onboard: whoeha :-)

Monday, monday ...

Photo: Baking in the springtime sun. It is about 28 degrees with a lovely breeze. Boyspotting at the South bank city beach, pool and view on CBD.

Photo: view on Brisbane CBD and the botanical gardens, from the rear deck of the speed boat.

Photo: The Citycat, a speed boat to cross the river from bank to bank.

Today I will follow the good advice of Manuel, and take the City Cat to travel around the city. Brisbane is virtually build in the jungle on the banks of the river. You can travel quite fast with the City Cat, a kind of a big speed boat, from the one end to the other end of the city. The city cat goes from one bank to the other bank of the river. You can also take the local ferries to cross the river, but they are much slower. Brisbane is really huge, it takes about 3 hours with the city cat to go back and forth from one end to the other end. On the boat you have a perfect view of the CBD district, the bridge, and the villas on the banks of the river.

In the afternoon, I visit again the South bank, to deepen my sun tan. The weather will change in the next days, so we have to profit from the spring sun ! The pool is much greater with a bit of sunshine, and because it is a school holiday, it is crowded with young people having a fun day...

Relax day !

Photo: Hmm not looking too bad after a full night out ...

Photo: Me, myself and I, a little bit more gold-plated :-)

Today I planned nothing special as I only got up at 14:00.

Here in Redcliffe is a kind of festival to celebrate their settlement so many years ago. I decide to skip it, although there was an F-1 boat race. I heard the motors roar from within bed.

The only thing I do today is to plan my trip to the Gold Coast, to Surfers Paradise. I also work a bit on this blog. This evening there is a massive lightning storm in the high skies. Yesterday there was one too with a big short rain in the evening.

As Egmont asked for a photo how my sun-tan is evolving, here are some photos... It is strange because the color you get here is more a goldish sun-tan instead of becoming red or dark brown. You will see when I get back :-)

Time to get a sun-tan !

Photo: Redcliffe shore: many of the smaller cities around the coastline have these free parks with opportunities to have a free swim in the pool and have a nice barbie (BBQ). The BBQs are electric. Everybody takes so much care about everything: it is absolutely clean everywhere, even public toilets... This morning I have a very relaxing time here :-p

Photo: The nicely lit Treasury building, with several occasions to go out. A lot of international youngsters hang around here, but not really the gay scene.

This morning I stay at the beach in Redcliffe, to have a dip in the pool and to get some suntan. The weather is lovely again and we are close to 30 degrees. The temperatures are soft here during all the year around, ranging from 20 to 35 degrees. So it stays comfortable all the time without being too humid.

In the afternoon I check out gay life in Brisbane. Well actually it is quite limited. Only two bars, I went only to the Wickham. Like all Brisbane, it gave an old-fashioned look. They are really 20 years behind in this city. I did not like it so much, also because the mens toilet was like completely covered with mirrors, so you could see *everything* *everywhere* from *everybody* Jiw... So, I only had one coffee and decided not to go out here tonight.

Instead I was recommended to go to the Beat Club. Actually it was very good. It was a very strange atmosphere to have straight people, gay people, lesbians and transvestite all mixed together in the same place. But it works ! Everybody had fun in one of the 7 bars and 4 dancing rooms. I danced through the night because I could not get back by public transport. The party zone in Brisbane is really big and concentrated. It was like having the Gentse Feesten in one big street (Ann street around Chinatown). At 5:00 am in the morning everything closes. Had to wait until 6:22 to take the train back. Luckily Australians are so friendly that it is not difficult to start a conversation. Around 7:30 I directly took my breakfast at the oceanside in the sun and then went to home to sleep until 14:00.

Sunday will be a day of rest :-) :-) :-)

City walk Brisbane

Photo: artificial tropical beach in the middle of the town. Still looks better with bad weather than Brussels beach *smile*

Photo: the inner city, business district. Personally I find it not that nice as Sydney or NY :-), but they are renovating and constructing a lot ...

Good "dai". Today I go with Manuel to the centre of Brisbane, where he works as an architect. The trip from Redcliffe (a peninsula) to the city centre is about 1 hour. We need to go with the local bus to Sandgate, where we take the train to central. Today I also have my Ozzie haircut :-)

I plan to walk around the business district, crossing the Victoria bridge to the South bank. The South bank is a left-over of the world exhibition in 1988. There are several very big musea, a lovely waterfront promenade and a Nepalese pavilion. Unfortunately the weather is not that nice, actually it rains a bit, but nothing compared to Belgium. It is the very first time in about 5 years that they have a decent rain here and it is very good for the plants to get green again.

Very nice is also the free open swimming pool with artificial beach. Here you can have a swim and have a lovely outlook at the CBD skyline at the same time. But I decide to walk further to the botanical gardens. After lunch the weather clears up a bit again.

In the afternoon, I leave the city before it gets dark (around 18:00 it is black dark here) so I can find my way home all by myself.

Flight to Brisbane !

Photo: view of the creek in the neighbourhood, the buildings are at the coastline.

Photo: ocean view from the terrace.

Okay, today I am flying to Brisbane. It was not a big deal. Flight time was only 1 hour to move up some 1000 km north. The weather is again sunny in Sydney but completely grey overcast in Redcliffe, Brisbane.

The atmosphere is very much tropical here in Brisbane, it is more humid and the air is more heavy. As I am quite far out of the city centre (see google earth, Redcliffe is a peninsula), it is good that Torsten my host came to pick me up from the airport.

We had about one hour drive to there place because of the traffic jam of the construction of a new bridge. In Brisbane there is construction all over the place and it is like the fastest growing area in AU. The appartment were I am staying is very lovely. They have a penthouse with a complete roof terrace with ocean view.

Torsten and Manuel give me a small guided tour in the Redcliffe beach district and then we head home to have a real Aussie BBQ (for free, jippie !) Everybody is so nice overhere ! .... My hosts are in fact two German guys who emigrated overhere some years ago without visas: that's an adventure ! Anyway they say that it is very easy to find a job if you are skilled and also the renting is very cheap and easy.

The only drawback of the Aussies is that they dont really live like Europeans. I mean they do not go out a lot to restaurants or terraces or even the beaches... It is very strange to see how many fancy shops and restos there are in Brisbane and Sydney and actually not a lot of people are using them ....strange strange.