Brisbane City Adventures Day 3

On our third and final day in Brisbane, we woke up in a great city apartment, made ourselves a delicious breakfast, and could admire the view of the city from the balcony again. However, this view was more impressive at night.

At around half past nine, we set off and marched to the other side of the river. There we went to the Art Gallery, which was free of charge again, and where we could admire some beautiful art exhibitions. Among other things, there was a collection of artworks from Papua New Guinea, which we found very interesting, because you don't get to see something like this on our part of the world. There were traditional masks, elaborate jewelry, and pictures that expressed the mood of the people when the modern Western world met their still very traditional one in the mid-20th century.

There was also a large section with Asian art and of course some Australian paintings. In total, we spent about 1.5 hours in the Art Gallery before we went to the neighboring building, the Queensland Museum. It also had free admission and housed a large collection of stuffed native animals, exhibits on the history of Queensland, an exhibition about dinosaurs and special Australian prehistoric animals, as well as, I believe, a temporary exhibition about parasites. Normally, there is even more to see, but at the time of our visit, the entire second floor was being prepared for the opening of a new exhibition. However, the rest was more than enough to look at, and we could easily spend another 2 hours there!

The exhibition on parasites fascinated us especially, even though it was sometimes really gross. I think Andi read pretty much every information sign there and spent most of the visiting time there :D Then there was this huge preserved deep-sea squid to see, which looked totally unreal and which I thought was very cool. In the section with the stuffed animals, it was great that we recognized many of them that we had already seen in the wild and now could learn their names. For example, I found an animal that was probably this trunked mouse that we saw in the rainforest at night.

After visiting the museum, we were pretty cold because the air conditioning was quite high, so we walked to the Lagoon to warm up. There we wanted to meet two girls that we met while picking tomatoes and who were also in Brisbane. They were already there when we arrived and we sat together for a few hours on the beach or in the water of the Lagoon and chatted. It was really nice, and the funny thing is that both of them speak Bavarian dialect, which then awakened feelings of home :D

At around half past three, the sky became quite dark, and when the announcement came that everyone had to leave the water because of the weather forecast, we quickly changed clothes and walked back to the car. After all, we didn't want to get caught in a storm like the one the day before without rain protection. It did start raining on the way, but thank goodness not as bad as feared.

After saying goodbye to the other two (their hostel was on the same way, so we walked together), we got in the car, returned the apartment key, and drove to the lookout at Mount Coot-tha. From there, you have a great view of the city. Unfortunately, we arrived right in the middle of rush hour, and on top of that, the Google navigation was so bad that we got lost, so it took us probably half an hour to drive about 7 kilometers. Pretty annoying, but that's city life.

But when we finally arrived at the lookout, it was definitely worth it because the view was really great. You could see the downtown area with the skyscrapers, the river, and all the suburbs. Houses were visible as far as the horizon in the entire field of view, so I realized how big this city is. Unfortunately, there was quite a strong wind up there, and it was quite cloudy, so we didn't stay long.

From Mount Coot-tha, we headed south around the city and to a free campsite a few kilometers outside. When we arrived, it was already dark, and the rain that caught us during the drive had made the meadow quite muddy. We had to walk about 150 meters to get to the toilet. So, not ideal, but it was free and nicely located in a quiet area. The next morning, we noticed that the fence behind our car was the boundary of a pasture for a few ponies, and behind it was a small farm, so we could have breakfast with a view of ponies, peacocks, chickens, and dogs :D

Friday was now planned for organizational things like Christmas presents. For lunch, we got a huge fish and chips platter for $20, which had 2 filets, calamari rings, fried shrimp, and a big pile of fries. It was really delicious, although way too much :D

In the evening, we drove a bit further south and to a free rest area a few kilometers before the Gold Coast. The next day, we wanted to plan what we want to see at the Gold Coast and when we will continue to other places :)