Packed and Ready to Go

At 5:30 am (groan) we make our way to the airport. The company we booked the tour with, "Outback Spirit" sent us a backpack, with a cap, sunscreen, mini binoculars, maps, towel and travel wallet. It is a nice idea but I don't like the packs very much. They are too big. I would rather go without the goodies and get a discount instead. They also gave us a list of things that we need to pack and then promptly said we have a limit of 16 kg/35 lbs. for the suit case and 3 kg/7lbs for the pack.

Well its done now. See you in 2 weeks

ADVENTURE TIME

We have had adventures in many parts of Australia but we have never been to the Kimberley and Top End regions, but next Tuesday we are off to see that exotic hot corner of our land.
We fly from Brisbane to Sydney and then over to Broome. There we pick up a small group tour.
We travel by 4 Wheel Drive, Mercedes, air conditioned bus through the outback to Darwin and then fly back to Brisbane. The trip to Broome takes 8 hours, then 14 days on the road and the flight home takes 4 hours. Its a big country. I hope we cope with the heat up there. So you won't be hearing from me until we get back in about 2 weeks time.

Birthday Bear Joins the Choir.

Birthday Bear sings for the CWA with Helen. See Birthday Bear's story on it's very own blog here.

Flowers and Bees

I got a new camera for my birthday. It is a Canon EOS 1000D and it is a monster compared to my little Sony Cyber Shot. It has many buttons and menus. There is a lot to learn and I hope I can learn to take really good shots. here is my first attempt at flowers and moving insects. I am quite happy with the shots but there is still room for improvement.

Bee collecting nectar from a Grevillea

Can you see the little drops of nectar

The bee has a drop of nectar in between his back legs

Begonia

Grevillea

Grevillea

Click the logo for more flowers around the world.

Berrinba Wetlands

We live in Logan City, it is the area of urban sprawl between Brisbane City and The Gold Coast City. These three cities together with the Sunshine Coast area to the north of Brisbane and Ipswich City to the west make up the densely populated South East corner of Queensland. However the councils do try to keep some green areas for the community to enjoy. I recently read about a new area in Logan that has been opened to the public called Berrinba Wetlands. So off we went to explore. It took some finding as the roads to it are so new they were not in the GPS but Google Maps came to the rescue. It only took about 20 minutes to get there.

Pelicans

There were many pathways and cycle tracks.

A wattle tree in bloom

It is a different species to my last post about wattle.

The path passed between two sheoak trees, which are also in bloom.

It is a very tiny flower.

Sorry that I don't know the name of this bird. It could be a cormorant.

A boardwalk over the water.

We walked a short circuit but I would like to do the longer one another day.

We returned to the back of the flash interpretive centre.

Then around to the front.

There were nice picnic spots and a big, children's playground. I thought it was a lovely area but BB reckons it will be better when the plants are more developed and the water is clearer.

Swiss National Day

Today is Swiss National Day. We don't always celebrate but this year we did. BB comes from Switzerland but has lived in Australia longer than in Switzerland and he is an Australian citizen. However it is sometimes nice to remember your heritage, so he did today.

We don't have a flag to fly so I stole this pic from google images.

But BB has an Alp Horn, which usually adorns our stairwell wall. Today he took it down, brushed off the dust and gave the neighbourhood a rendition of haunting mountain music. He rarely does this as he is a bit shy.

Then we hunted the wardrobe for our Swiss souvenir T-shirts, jackets and hat, jumped in our matching red car and drove to the northern suburb of Mitchleton ,where there is a very good traditional Swiss restaurant called Des Alps. We had arranged to meet some Aussie friends who wanted to celebrate with us especially as they know how good the food is here.

(Sorry Carol and Sonya..hope we are not embarrassing you)

Can you see the Swiss cow on my shirt and the Swiss crosses on our jackets? It was such a hot winter's day that we had to take off our jackets.

Des Alps is a small cosy restaurant with a function room at the back.(Look how these patrons are dressed for winter, she has a strappy blouse..yahoo I think winter is over)

Nick and Monique, the owners were there to greet us and cook for us. They had pulled out the 25 Canton (state) flags of Switzerland to decorate the restaurant for us.

Paul, Bill, Denis, Colin, Val, Helen and Peter enjoyed lunch with us.

I had the special set menu. Cheese Tart appetiser.

Smoked trout entree (absolutely delicious)

Veal in a lovely sauce with Rösti potatoes for main course (Half eaten, I nearly forgot to take photo)

Rice pudding, cinnamon ice cream and ginger biscuits for desert.

Happy Swiss Day Titania and family.