I hate snakes!

We flew into Brisbane to be greeted by two smiling couples, one to give us the keys to their car and the other the keys to their house.  A gentle drive then up to Noosa, which is a very refined seaside resort just getting ready for their annual surf championship: lots of old and cookie guys from Hawaii and California in evidence. 

Suffered 2 days of torrential rain at the tail end of a cyclone, 30cm in 24 hours!  The weather must drive the wildlife for shelter too, inside the house Glenn had to beat to death a spider the size of a saucer and the next day mete out the same treatment to a bloody snake (he hates snakes).  Queensland still has more things to kill you than anywhere else on earth……But we left the Koalas alone and were fortunate to get this close up of one right at the top of his tree.

Then flew down to Sydney for a few days of hospitality in the suburbs with our next exchange hosts before going down to their house in beautiful Jervis Bay.  Managed to meet up again with Sue’s cousin, Linnet and her children and got to the Opera to see Turandot –amazing to be in fantastic seats  just 20 feet away from the tenor when he was belting out Nessun Dorma (Take note Les Mis - NO AMPLIFICATION).  Ferried about on the harbour to go and see Manley in the northern suburbs, a refined example of Victorian seaside in OZ.

Jervis Bay certainly has white beaches every bit as good as the Whitsundays, with lots of white coves linked to each other through a bush walk.  Rather like Dartmouth in UK provides great surroundings for sea-learning, so the Ozzies teach their cadets in these superb bays, their buildings can just be seen in the distance in this last shot.  Also got fairly close to a (pride?) of Roos, no you don’t go to the bush to see them, you go to the local golf course.  They seem to like the lush and tender grass there.  The big male looked as if he could be quite aggressive and the 2 females with Joeys in their pouches were really sweet.  But rather like a group of Meerkats, they kept a close eye on the photographer and swivelled their necks round to follow every step.  They are also on many of the suburban lawns around here at dusk and seemed totally unfazed by people like us just 10 feet away (albeit secure in their car….)

Tomorrow we dine in a tree house restaurant (!) recommended by our hosts in Sydney, some more walks on this beautiful coast and then on to Hong Kong (again with some great recommendations from the Sydney gang) and home….Glenn forgot to mention that on an evening sortie to look for kangaroos yesterday, we were stopped by the police for a random breath test.  Thank god there’s been no vodka martinis here!  All clear, but the rental car was shown to be illegal sporting an out of date licence!  Just our luck – but the cop was ok and after phoning the company discovered that it was registered - they had just omitted to affix the new disc to the car.  Good start…

Everyone here says the weather is ‘cold’ as its now autumn, but for us it is just bliss to be warm and with little humidity.  The beaches are almost empty and walks almost wild so we are in heaven.  The contrast with the city and the seaside is very marked, but we are looking forward to a final blast of shopping and night life in HK next week.