And They're Off!!!

  Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Mick checking the road ahead as we leave Melb

The road trip is on!  
We left Melbourne on Wednesday with a very special passenger who is hitching a ride all the way round Aus with us (see photos)... we named him Mick after our absent friend - hopefully he doesn't drink as much as his namesake or we will be through the travel fund in no time...!

Mick's adopted Nowra family

Mick on Sydney harbour bridge

I was starting to get very restless, having been stationary for a while, so it is a great feeling to be on the move again in search of more adventure, though the first few days didn't allow for much of that as we were keen to go as far north as quickly as possible to get to the really exciting bits... so we sat in the car for up to ten hours a day chewing up the miles... and there are many of them!  It was lovely to catch up with Simone when we stopped over in Nowra and we got a couple of short walks in, notably up to the lighthouse at pretty Byron Bay, and to snap 'The Big Banana', but the rest of the time it was foot on the gas and move fast.  

Lara and Mia introduce Mick to trampoline

Next stop was Brisbane,  which is really just another bland city, but was enlivened by staying with John's friends John and Leanne and their 2 delightful daughters, who took a real shine to Mick and told their babysitter "There's a girl staying here and her best friend is a kangaroo!".  They dressed him up and then took him bouncing on the trampoline and he had a blast!  Best was yet to come, though, when he got to steer Lawrie's boat around the bay on an evening of sailing on calm water under a full moon, as we sipped a few beers on deck - absolutely gorgeous.

Lawrie and Mick on the boat

Mick steering the boat

The sun is shining more and more as we head north under blue skies (and the Aussies call this 'winter' - ha!) so we are off up the coat today to Hervey Bay in search of whales and some four-wheel drive action on the sands of Fraser Island.