First Stop Brissy with Frossie

Ahh completely forgot to take pictures of the luggage - let's see if I remember on arrival! 

Yes the luggage!

Anyway 'coz it's cold we ended up with more stuff, so we took the bigger silver case. Funny how, the shorter the trip, the bigger the luggage.

We used Uber, for the first time, to get to the airport. It was great, our driver arrived in 7 minutes, as advised, and the cost was cheaper than usual taxi and we didn't have to worry about paying and receipts on arrival, as it all goes through the App. Very civilised.

Check in was painless, and now we are enjoying a big glass of red and a cold one to help us sleep on the flight. Got to love my fellow sandgropers, the usual WA winter wardrobe is on display - hoodies and thongs. 

WA formal flight attire.

We had a uneventful flight, although I didn't sleep a wink, even with the usually trusty Stilnox, but Richie got a few hours.

We collected our car from Apex and drove to Coralie and Adams' place. We had a lovely first day. Adam drove us into Brisbane and we had lunch at the South Bank, it was a moderately warm, sunny winters day. 

The kids frolicking at the South Bank beach seemed to think it was the middle of summer, ditto the semi naked, sunbathing Europeans.

first lunch at Southbank, Brisbane

 We took a long walk across the city, from one side to the other side and then got the free red ferry back. 

Unfortunately, I suffered the Holt curse and had a migraine the first night. I was awake all night and kept Richie up for a good part of it. 

The Holt curse strikes again

So we didn't go out until 1pm the following day because it took me all morning and several cups of tea to feel human again. 

When I did arise, we visited the Botanical Gardens (perfect venue for recuperation), was nice, not the best gardens we've seen but the bonsai section was very impressive. We had coffee and cakies and then headed off to Mt Coot-tha lookout that had fantastic views of Brissy.

view from Mt Coot-tha

In the evening we collected Coralie from QUT. She had just handed in her final thesis amendments so was very happy, and headed back to South Bank for dinner. 

We had a pleasant evening and a great walk along South Bank to admire the city at night.  It's really cold in Brissy - the forecast temps are the same as Perth but it feels much colder. Still, we have electric blankets on the bed which are delicious!

The Frossies slept very late on Thursday so we only had a short time in Noosa, but it was a delightful time. It was much classier than I'd imagined. 

We arrived after a frantic two hour drive, had a nice lunch, delicious coffee and cakies, a short walk around town and along the beach and then drove back to Brissy.

Our last night was spent celebrating with Coralie, as her final amendments for her PhD thesis were approved. 

The gorgeous Dr Frossie

Hurrah its finally over!