Sugar cane and fireworks

From Grafton in NSW (and the start of the sugar cane fields), we followed the Pacific Highway up through Ballina (and fields of cotton!) and stayed the night at a sports ground in Mullumbimby.

 

The next day we crossed the border into Queensland and the Gold Coast. We spotted all the water parks and theme parks which we’ll do next time on our way back down J We stayed in Ipswich which is about an hour by train outside Brisbane and met up with an ex work colleague of mine (Anita Ryan) on the Friday evening. She recommended meeting at the Breakfast Creek Hotel which is the only place that still serves XXXX made in a wooden cask. They also do excellent steaks and it was good to catch up with Anita on her home ground.

 

She also told us that Saturday was the end of the week long Brisbane Festival. We followed her advice and headed for the city to explore. From the centre of Brisbane, we crossed Victoria Bridge to the South Bank. They’ve even got a wheel and it all looks very familiar! Families were already staking their claim early on to patches of grass, tables, communal BBQs and anywhere along the river so they could see the fireworks which would go off later. We walked all the way along to Kangaroo Point and crossed Storey Bridge, along the other side past Eagle St pier, through the Botanic Gardens, back across Goodwill Bridge and to find a spot on the South Bank. Apache and Blackhawk helicopters gave us a display of their manoeuvrability and Hornet F18s flew low along the river and made lots of noise J The Hornets also started off the fireworks display by dropping fireballs and hitting the afterburners. And what a fireworks display it was. A big ‘thank you’ goes out to the Brisbane taxpayers – the display was fantastic!

On Monday we took our bikes in on the train to see the rest of the city’s parks. From Milton, we cycled in along the river and down the South Bank again, across Goodwill Bridge and into the city, up through King Edwards Park (really, really steep!), along to Wickham Park, Roma Street Parklands, Victoria Park then onto Fortitude Valley and our train back to Ipswich.

Today we are going to do the XXXX tour J then head further north tomorrow.