Wow!

Just outside of 'Bundy' everything is so pretty again. Rainbow Beach is fantastic - just outside the Frasier Island coast. We don't succeed to arrange a daytrip, but the coast side is as pretty and so relaxed. This turns out to be the no 1 location for hanggliding. That's a long time ago (itch, itch....)

Dolphins and pelicans eat out of your hand here and the local 'brard' (see picture) lives on the ferry. At night he gets tight up to a tree (according to Pete). After that we head for Ballina. It is still as beautiful as we remember, both the coast as the 'hinterland'. Pete manages to spot a Koala whilst driving the car. Not an easy job as they don't move much normally (they feed on eucalyptus leaves and are as high as a kite). Annet spots it only after staring at the gumtree for fifteen minutes. We managed to make a picture, but we will not trouble you with this look-find shot.

There are about 500 different species of gumtree. We think the main similarity is that they shed there bark. This results in an unreal moonlike forest.

Heading North

Ready for departure from Brisbane we discover an attempted ‘unlawful entry’ into our (police!) car. That takes up the best bit of the day, but we manage to be in time to pick up our ……. ’droplet’.

So we decide to rename the police car to ‘tearjerker’.

Heading for Caloundra next, which we reach just before dark. House/land hunting the next day results in a 2 hour scenic drive around the area with an estate agent. He showed us some stunning pieces of land for sale. But it took us until the last moment to find out his name was ‘Roobottom’ (the only one we have seen in nearly two weeks down under). Nearly pissing ourself we were still impressed by the area.

Next on the list is Bundaberg (three hours North), where the local airplane builder (Jabiru) grabbed our attention. Well except for the rum and the sugar, there is not much worth mentioning about ‘Bundy’. So, although Jabiru seems a nice company (the owner working himself on a Saturday, wearing his cowboyhead) the general conclusion was that Bundaberg is not the place to be.

Bundaberg does however have the odd thunderstorm, lasting about an hour and a half. Nothing special for the locals, we however where quite impressed by the force of this nature phenomenon (we were absolutely convinced the end of the world was near and we were about to embark Noach’s ark) …… As unexperienced caravanners we thought we were all right and headed into town. Turned out we left the skylight open. We learn fast the hard way.

After another week standing in qeues at goverment offices, we eventually ended up with 2 Queensland drivers licenses and a Medicard.

Lets call the drivers license from now on 'the Gold Card', as it looks to be opening all doors. Without it you can't: book a restaurant, open a tab in a bar, buy booze, get money from your bank account, sign up for Medicare, get car insurance, register a car. Oh yes, and of course you need it to drive your car too. Surely, it makes a cup of tea in the morning as well but we haven't challenged it do so yet (we're coffee drinkers).

Anyway, we are now legally identifyable and finally real Queenslanders.

Time for the next step: buying an RV. After several car yards we changed plans. A tip sets us of to the Queensland Department of Transport where they auction (ex-gov) vehicles. We finally ended up with a ... police car. Signs and horns removed of course.

Well, at least no outstanding fines on that one then!

This beauty will take us to Bundaberg next. The plan has changed slightly (again), we need to go North first and then we'll follow the ducks South.

Brisbane was great by the way. The views from the river are magnificent and on the southbank there is an artificial beach. Very busy on the weekends. Our standard weekend procedure was sitting on the porch of the pub, watching the people go by, downing a nice bottle (or two) of chilled white.

Home improvement

So we are in Brisbane - which is in Queensland. The weather is subtropical (warm and sunny one moment, heavy rain but still warm the next) and people live in (guess what?) Queenslanders. Fantastic pieces of houses these are: a dream for home improvement projects. They come built ground level, but whenever you are in the mood for some serious DIY you just lift the house (see picture for a demonstration) If you want to take that one step further, you just move the house to another location.