Day trip to Byron Bay

As this was our last full day in Queensland, we decided to take a day trip to Byron Bay, just about an hours drive south of here (quick now the freeway is built (the scenic road we used to drive some 15 years ago, was tedious) It's an area of beautiful beaches and a lot of gorgeous views

We drove up to the lighthouse, which may be the most easterly lighthouse in Australia

There were lots of birds, both feathered and 2 legged
David did a lot of people watching and commented that many of the swim suits were not much bigger than a Band aid

More Drinks

Today we drove up to Tambourine Mountain - a hillside comunity about an hours drive West of Surfers Paradise. We had lunch at a Fromagerie (cheese factory) and Brew Pub - David sampled the beers below - and enjoyed them - the cheeses were pretty good also.

For a link to a video of the area go here

Drinking in Australia

Just wanted to share a couple of the most popular drinks we have had here in Australia - remember its summer and its hot - so cool drinks are the order of the day.

VOLTAGE - extreme Coffee is a blend of ice, milk, vanilla, expresso beans and expresso coffee.Then hot expresso shots are poured into the cold, blended mixture to really get you going!

Then there is the Affogato - instead of desert have this - its icecream, with a shot of liquor (usually Franjelico or Amaretto) poured over the icecream, then followed by a shot of hot expresso poured on top - the perfect end to a meal.

Trip to Adelaide

Yes, the correct answer to the last post, was Adelaide. We went there for a few days. We toured the city the first day and explored both the botanical gardens and the nearby wine center. The wine center was an informational and educational display of wine growing and was very interesting. One of the displays allowed you to select grapes, and process them into wine and evaluate the results - mine was described as worthy of "floor cleaner!!" David's was something to accompany a truly awful meal. So I guess wine making is not in our future, unless we are much better educated! This was not using real grapes, just a computer program... A wander around the Botanic gardens was relaxing and enjoyable. We then stayed right down town at the Hilton and enjoyed a meal at a small Italian restaurant that night before heading out to the Barossa the next day to go wine tasting.
The first winery was Wolf Blass and they had just released a very innovative new package - a plastic wine bottle and the wine in it was quite good, its light to carry and does not break! It come with both red & white wine. We sampled many more wines and drove around the area and took some pictures of the architecture and other sites - see pictures at the end of the blog.


The next day we planned to fly to Kangaroo island and island just off the south of South Australia. It was just a 20 minute flight (but it saved the ferry crossing which can be very rough and I am not the best sailor in the world!) We arrived at the tiny airport collected our Hertz car (after being told that you only get 100 free KM and after that you pay .27 per km and as the island is about 100 KM long and to see anything you need to drive from one end to the other, they know you will exceed the mileage allowed - great revenue raiser. The airport was also planned with great expansion in mind, as it 14km from the nearest town (and that's also where the nearest petrol and accommodation is) - so going in and out of town uses up 28 of your "free" miles! We stayed in Kingscote for the night and the hotel was under renovation, the restaurant was mediocre. I did play the 1c poker machine and won $19...
The next day we drove around the island, visiting a Eucalyptus Farm, a honey farm and the National Park where we saw magnificent rock formations. After a full day of driving (and 300km later) we returned to the airport and headed back to Adelaide. We went a dog show on Saturday morning and then flew back to Queensland.
Enjoy the photos below

Up, Up and Away

We are flying on a new airline today - Tiger Airways (they are the low cost version of Singapore airlines) they are taking us to ???? (Guess where and no, its not Singapore, its somewhere in Australia)

This is Coolangatta airport, above

And this is our destination - below - who knows, or wants to guess where it is.

The unusual things you see

Driving around today we saw this establishment and had to take a photo. I have never seen these 2 businesses combined before...

This is the dog wash part. While I was taking the photos, an employee came over and asked what I was doing - I said taking pictures, and they wanted to know why. I said I thought it was an unusual combined business. He was not pleased?!

Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next

This is the slogan for Queensland and it is so true - the weather has been wonderful about 88 F (28 C) each day, with hardly a cloud in the sky and a soft ocean breeze. We have been having a lazy time - a little bit of shopping (but with the Ozzie dollar at .92c US) - there are NO bargains! But basically we are just relaxing.

Surfer's Paradise - ariel view
Board riders

The Beach

The other night there was LOTS of activity as one of the Schoolies had got lost in the surf, and they had all the helicopters up searching for him - and it was just outside my parents apartment - he has not been found, as yet.

One of the parking meter attendants in Surfers Paradise.

Today we decided to go to a country dog show about a 2 hour drive NW of here - held inland, it was very hot there - the show was due to start at 4pm, we arrived at 3pm and took a look around the grounds, which were set up - see picture below
The grounds were very dry with prickly grass and ants abounded. There were only a handful of beagles entered, saw a couple and decided that as the coolest place was our car, that there was not much point hanging around, so we drove back home!
Still we saw some lovely rural views along the way