Our last few days in Queensland were spent  mopping up a few shop visits, restaurant recommendations and sights in Brisbane, and a trip two hours north to Noosa with Youngest Son (YS) and his girlfriend.

LSW and I also had the honour of being invited to dinner with the parents of one of YS’s best friends, and to see Brisbane Roar play football in the huge SunCorp Stadium. Both evenings were enormous fun and also fascinating in the observation of similarities and differences from the UK.  Certainly the pyrotechnics as the teams came out at SunCorp Stadium are a step up from what we experience at Forest Green Rovers!

Brisbane Roar vs Adelaide at the SunCorp Stadium

Noosa was rainy and, at times, very rainy. Rain didn’t stop play though. LSW was able to get around the touristy town shops, I walked along the coast, we taught YS’s girlfriend Rummy and we all saw dolphins.

View From Our Airbnb in Noosa: Sunrise After Showers

We also saw YS’s proficiency with car and camera. Especially gIven my relative incompetence in driving and in using machines and equipment, I was impressed. It’s always good to see first hand offspring mastering things beyond ones own ability.

YS drove us in the rain to Mount Coot-tha for a panoramic view of Brisbane and then to the Botanic Gardens. There was just time for some more YS camerawork there before the rain closed in again.

YS and Girlfriend on Mt Coot-tha

We said goodbye to YS and girlfriend next morning after another routinely  marvellous breakfast.

Açai Bowl at Nodo Donuts Cafe, Brisbane

This breakfast was at the cafe where YS had first worked when he arrived in Brisbane 18 months ago.  It was lovely to see him greeted by the staff there but then sad to say goodbye to him. YS and girlfriend are back to the UK for Christmas though, so only 8 weeks to a reunion.

Our Youngest Son (YS) has been in Australia for almost 18 months now. This is Long Suffering Wife’s (LSW) and my first trip to Australia. It was great to see him and his lovely Northern Irish girlfriend for the first time since he left.

His lifestyle here seems tremendous. Brisbane is up and coming and has some edgy bits. He has forged a new, interesting and apparently thriving cinematography business here (Cactus Juice Cinematography). He has great friends and a car to enable trips to the amazing countryside and coast.

YS and his girlfriend have shown us around West End where they live, introduced us to the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art and guided us to using the river boats to see other hip parts of Brisbane.

Example Local Art at Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art

Also they drove us out to see sunrise from the Glasshouse Mountains. The jet lag meant the very early start was no problem for LSW or I – although there is embarrassing footage of us snoozing in the back of the car on the way back!

In any case the trip was fabulous. The sunrise was great. The ancient volcanic plugs that make up the mountains are spectacular but also, in the case of Ngungun, accessible through a 30 minute, energetic climb. The views all around were spectacular.

Sunrise View Climbing Ngungun, Glasshouse Mountains

View from Ngungun at Sunrise

YS and girlfriend were able to scare us on the way down with warnings of animals called ‘drop bears’ that fall onto the unsuspecting shoulders of tourists. This is fiction of course, but we were taken in for a few seconds. Pommie tricking is sport!

Sunrise Over the Sunshine Coast from Ngungun

We did much more on the trip, including our first of many visits to a pristine, seemingly endless beaches of perfect sand and surf, and my first açai bowl breakfast.  Great fun and more to come…