Jackie Howe Motel Warwick

... I made my second surprising discovery. Yesterday I had been sitting just outside my tent when a skink (about 15cm long) suddenly ran up to my feet, gave me the most startled look, as if to say 'ooh heck, didn't realise you were there!' and darted under my bag of groceries. I assumed he wandered away later in the day, but lo and behold, there he was this morning, curled up under a pile of gravel. At first I thought he was dead, but ...

... last night. 25 Countries... That's alot of Countries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am still questioning how I am going to get to the other 4 Countries because my Eurorail pass goes to 21 Countries and since my plan is 25 Countries. I am sure where there is a will there is a way. I found my passort. I bought my travel insurance. All together so far it has cost me $1140 to get the ball rolling. $900 for a train ...

... that he didn't make it, but sure enough five minutes later, Franky ambled out of the bushes, bobbing and pecking in his Sherpa Turkey way. I threw him my apple core in triumph that he shared our trek with us, but I don't think he really cared. The last 200 meters were treacherous. A blessedly sturdy chain was erected up a 45-degree slope of jagged rock that led to the top. I don't think I'd ever be accused of being athletic so ...

... pretended it was like Whack-A-Mole for my feet, we petted sea cucumbers and sea stars, saw a ton of sharks, took lots of pictures and headed home around 5. ((All the pictures are up on Kodak Gallery - let me know if you'd like an email to the album, I think I sent it to most everyone)) Dinner on Friday night was at this place called the SpaceWalker ((www.spacewalker.com.au)). We didn't do the space tour thing, but the food was pretty cool -- I had a seafood with cream ...

... great big brown spider crawl along the side of my door. I wasted no time in telling Fiona about it and she quickly pulled over the side of the road. She informed me it was probably a huntsman and not dangerous. The black ones were the ones to be careful of. We weren't able to find the spider again so I spent the rest of the journey with my eyes peeled. This was the reality of heading into the bush.... As we approached the house she began ...

... which is report ably good for the sport. Australia has a good climate for flying, providing more opportunities to get up there into the big blue room when compared to Blighty where the wind is often too strong. I decided to book myself onto a two-day taster course in order to see what all the fuss was about and hopefully manage a small flight of my own. The two day course was run down at Mt Tambourine with the mornings ...

... there the weather was perfect and we enjoyed another day on the beach. A 10 mile beach totally to ourselves it was wicked. We took a walk on the beach that night and got caught in the middle of a tropical storm. Gale force winds, enormous drops of rain, lighting every 2-3 seconds for hours and even some hale. Our tent got flooded so we had to sleep in the car. The next day we made it to our first primary destination, and my favourite so ...

... National Park. Our first stop was at O'Reilley Guesthouse. We were led to a spot with brightly colored green, red, orange and purple parrots scattered around a small group of people. With birdseed in hand, we held out our palms, and within seconds both of us had a cute parrot perched on our wrist. Some of the braver folks nearby chose to put birdseed on their heads as well, and they had parrots on both hands, on their heads, on their shoulders - everywhere! We were both ...

... planted. And a sturdy breeze-block fire place built by their sons Nick and Carl on their previous visit. We pitched our little silver tent beneath a magnificent old gum and joined Marion and Alex in their caravan for an evening of chatting and catching up. We worked out that we had not seen them for at least nine years! On Tuesday morning we were all up bright and early, and took a nice long walk on the property. Along the way, Alex and Marion pointed out all the invasive ...

... a beautifully restored colonial style building where we'd prebooked a nights accomodation. Not wanting to waste a morning catching up on sleep we dropped our backpacks, had a quick shower and a cup of tea and then started walking towards the city centre. Brisbane, with its population of 1.5 million is Australias third largest city. The centre is surrounded by a U shaped loop of the Brisbane River which eventually empties into Moreton Bay. Another blue skyed ...