Hot, Hot, Hot

Wellington airport: Mum (Smart), Sean, Mum (Parkes), Adrienne
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Friday and Saturday blurred into one.  Friday was spent packing the bags, picking up the last few items and not bein able to put money on the Travelex card because the banks close at 4:30.... the buggers.

A pre-lunch glass of wine helped us through the day and eventually we woke after 4 hours sleep to the alarm announcing that it was 3:30 am.  We chucked our stuff into Sean's Mum's car and were off to the airport.  Both our Mum's took us to the aiport for a quick farewell.  Adrienne didn't cry although there was a bit of moisture in her eyes to kick-off the journey.

"...we were disappointed when one of the keepers had to break up a fight between two of them..."

Mt Taranaki - au revoir NZ!
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The flight was a mixture of sleeping (we managed to get 3 seats to ourselves!), reading and mindless staring at clouds.  It was only a 4 hour trip and we were in Brisbane before The Numbing truly set in.  Adrienne's work had given her a mascot in the form of a toy Kea and part of our journey was spent naming it.  The winning name:  Kev the Kea.  Craig and Joolz met us at the airport and were witness to us nearly dying in the humid, 25°C heat; all at a cheery 8:30 am.  Ok, we're from Wellington - this was tropcial!

Kev the Kea on his inaugural voyage
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After visiting Julie and Craigs house to meet the six gorgeous kittens Charlie the cat had given birth to only a fortnight previously, and cooling down briefly, we jumped into their car with its 4x80 air conditioning (all 4 windows down driving at 80kph).  We headed up Mt Coot-tha (pronounced Cootha) for a view over Brisbane.  It was a beautifully clear day, but the heat had caused a haze to rise over the city.  Nonetheless we got to see the lay of the land.

View of Brisbane from Mt Coot-tha
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That evening, Julie very kindly organised for the Brisbane residing members of our family to join us for a bbq.  The family in this city is quite large, and most of them turned up.  The strange thing was that by 6:30, it was dark, but still warm.  Quite unlike a bbq back at home.  The highlight of the night had to be 3 year old Jorja performing numerous dances for us.  She has quite a talent!

After a decent nights sleep, our friends Mike and Eng from Welly who now live here, picked us up (minus Craig who had to work) and we drove up to Bribie Island, just north of Brisbane.  We set up camp on the windy, sandy beach and immediatly dug in to our lunch.  We were the only two to brave the waters that day, and we'd like to point out the sea was WARM!  We played around in the waves until we decided the others must have been tiring of watching our graceful diving.  Finding the sand whipping along the beach a little hard to bare, we went back into Brisbane so Mike and Eng could show off their new house to us.  Very nice guys!

Sean and a 3m long snake
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Both Julie and Craig had to work on Monday, so we braved the big city buses and made our way to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  This place is full of koalas.  They don't do much though, and we were disappointed when one of the keepers had to break up a fight between two of them because it was the most action we saw out of the bears all day.  The first thing we managed to do, and the most exciting, was to touch a 3m long snake!  It felt different to what we imagined, smoother and softer; kind of like Cottonsoft toilet paper... or not.

Adrienne and a 'roo
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Other animals we visited included all of the usual Australian ones: parrots, dingoes, wombats, kangaroos, and a freshwater croc.  It was so hot and we found it hard to handle, especially because we had read that it cost less to get in than it really did ($17 pp with a YHA card), so we didn't have any money for food!  We had to laugh at one Japanese lady walking around in high heels (we noticed this in the kangaroo paddock!), and some Japanese men who were wearing jeans, sneakers and long sleeved shirts!  They must have been dying!

A koala or two, doing what they do
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Adrienne's cousin Danielle and her husband James invited us over for dinner that night as they hadn't been able to make it to the bbq on Saturday.  We enjoyed a lovely meal and even better conversation.  They have the cutest wee dog who had to have his hair cut so he wouldn't get too hot in the summer.