Waking up this morning I checked my phone and it said there would be thunderstorms all day. This completely ruined everything I had planned for the day so I was kind of bummed. Luckily however the weather turned out to be the complete opposite.

At 6:55 AM I made my way via tram to the Q1 Resort which is the tallest apartment building in the southern hemisphere. It was here where I would begin my real adventures. After getting hooked up into a harness I made my way with a group to the 77th floor. There we went through a side door to the open air on top of the tower. After doing the CN Tower SkyWalk in Toronto this felt like nothing but it was still amazing. We climbed up a ladder and then climbed about a hundred steps to the the spire on top of the building. Looking out along the gold coast we could see for nearly 50 miles in every direction. Needless to say the view was incredible. And yes, I did hang off the building.

After making our way back inside I sat down for a quick breakfast and then made my way down to the beach. I only had about 10 minutes before I needed to return to my hotel so I wasn’t able to enjoy it but it was still nice being there.

Once I checked out of my hotel I hopped on another public bus to return to the Helensvale train station where I caught a train to Brisbane. Once in Brisbane I made my way to the hotel and tried to check in. Unfortunately the room wasn’t ready yet but that turned out to be a good thing.

Instead of taking a nap like I wanted to I hopped on a bus to take me to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This is one of the neatest places I have ever been. It feels like a jungle even though it’s in a residential area. There were hundreds of exotic wild birds flying overhead and making incredible noises. Kangaroos hopped freely around a large expanse of land allowing visitors to interact with them in a natural environment. And of course Koalas hung in the trees. A highlight of everyones visit was getting to cuddle up with a koala to get your picture taken. My koala’s name was Tinker-bell and she was 6 years old. I originally intended to spend about an hour at the sanctuary but ended up spending the majority of my day taking pictures there.

Once leaving the sanctuary I took another bus back to central Brisbane where I rode a CityCat ferry along the main river. These ferries are by far the best I have ever been on. I easily could have spent a couple hours just cruising back and forth on them, but I had other things I wanted to accomplish. It was mid evening by that time and I wanted to take some nice pictures of the sun setting so I positioned myself about the famous story bridge. I stayed there for about an hour and a half photographing the sun setting beyond the city and the beautiful lights turning on after it was dark.

By then it was 7:30 PM and I was exhausted, so I took a bus back to my hotel and settled down for the night. That is where I am now trying to import thousands of photos. It’s taking longer than anticipated so I might not get many uploaded before I fall asleep. I’ve got a lot of down time tomorrow as I take a train to Sydney however I don’t think I’ll have internet or power along the way so I probably won’t get much done in terms of photo publishing… Stay tuned…

#GoldCoast #Brisbane #Australia #Queensland #travel #trip #2015 #2015trip