Ipswich, Brisbane, family and friends - 6th August

Following from Goombungee the cooler weather  has us still using our extra covers at night, the days have been lovely even with the odd spot of rain, to date we have only had no more than 5 rainy days in total............

As luck would have it while we were house and doggie sitting Bells Mum and Dad, sister Jen and best friend Deb have all decided to book a flight over to Brisbane to catch up with us for a week!



See photo - Belinda, Aunty Jen, Riley, Mum, Dad and Aiden at Movie World.

See photo - Sea World.

See photo - Dinner with family - Aunty Jen & Boys at Movie World - Sea World, Emperor Penguins - Loan Pine Koala Park.

See photos - Dad and Bell on Superman ride - Bremer bridge boys and cousin Josh - Cousin plane time  - Aunty Deb and boys at Wet n Wild.

Mum, Dad and Jen arrived Saturday morning 7am to the delight of us all. We had a great brekkie at the local café and enjoyed the lovely morning weather, something Perth doesn't have on offer during these winter months. Toni managed to arrange some back seats (thanks Kellie) so we could all fit in the Prado (all 8 of us) and avoid hiring another car for the week. After a catch up day we headed to Movie World, the boys first Theme Park, Chris took his Dad to Gold coast for a lazy day without the kids..... yay! We got Grandad on the Superman and Lethal Weapon ride, which left him a bit unsettled due to his sinuses....... in all we all had a blast. That evening we went out for dinner on the way to the airport and said our goodbyes to Poppy (Chris' Dad ) and Jen. The airport run was interesting with a huge traffic jam on the 6 lane entrance to the domestic terminal, we latter found out from Poppy that at least 15 people missed that flight!



See photo - Allan, Jodie, Aiden, Chris, Riley Mum and Dad on Kurilpa Bridge in Brisbane.

See photo - Chris holding a Koala (first time)
at Lone Pine Koala Park.

Mum and Dad stayed for the rest of the week and we enjoyed some relaxing time with a visit to Sea World a look at the Gold coast and also the Lone Pine Koala Park. A great week which ended with Deb visiting over the weekend, she arrived at 9am and was dragged off to Wet and Wild water park for the day. We were impressed that Deb managed to stay awake ( all that Friday and Saturday night training mate ) and again it was great to spend some quality time together. For the folks last day we headed over to our friends from Saudi, Jodie, Al and Nick Cherry, it was great to catch up with them and we went out for lunch to South Bank in Brisbane to explored the river, bridges and museums. After saying our goodbyes to Mum and Dad we stayed the night at Al & Jodie's, then headed back to Flinders View to catch up with the newly weds who had just returned from there honeymoon cruise. On the Monday we took Debs out for the day with Jodie and Al then did the airport run and said our goodbyes.



Bremer River - Aunty Toni, Josh, Riley and Aiden

Whilst in Ipswich we went down to the Bremer River where we could gage the true effects of the floods in January 2011. It was 19 mtrs above the usual height, and was hard to believe that it was1 metre lower than the 1974 floods, where the water reached just underside of the bridge pictured.

See photo - Cunningham Gap with Toni, Andrew, Josh.

With family evenings, maintenance on the van, and some movies, it was nice to do some catching up. We took a trip up to Cunningham's Gap, where we had a lovely bush walk, picnic lunch were we were accompanied by 10  male and female Bower birds. Their eyes where stunning and they were very cheeky. The following day we had to say our goodbyes to the Shard family. However before we left Riley was surprised with an early birthday present from Toni, Andrew and Josh. It was Lego...... yahoo! The perfect travellers gift, and big thanks to Josh for assembling it with Riley!!!

See photo - About to leave Toni and Andrew's house...

Brisbane has been great for a bit of downtime and will prepare us for the rest of our travels as we now only have 9 weeks left before getting back to the grindstone and normal life once again.

Just some more interesting stats ...

We have travelled 17435 kms
Had 5 days of rainy weather to date (2 on this part of the leg)


Enjoy our next visual .... Riley loves every part of it especially the rides (we think he has become a ride junky!)
 

See photo - Koala - Queensland's State Animal.

See photo - Bell's favourite photo .....