saturday morning here, friday night there

TGIF to my friends and family at home. it is saturday morning here, 9:15am. so far, i have gotten up, eaten a crumpet, drank a cup of tea, and done 2 loads of laundry. today we need to plan our next move. we need to get out of brisbane. we are going to try and hire a car, then move to the sunshine coast. so, we have to put our planning hats on today, and pack up our stuff...again.

it has been nice to have a place to stay for a week. however, brisbane city isn't what i thought it would be. brisbane is just a city, and living the city life for a week has been nice, especially since we both had work/studying to do. so, we had a couple days just to relax and get some actual work done. but, it is time to move on. apparently, you need a car to do everything, or you need to be more organized and book all these tours beforehand.

yesterday, we did a day tour of moreton island. it was nice, except for the bumpy 4wd off-roading we did on the island. yes, i was getting a little car sick, and no, i didn't remember my scopalamine patch. my fault. i didn't think it was gonna be like that. anyway, we got to the brisbane transit centre at 6:45am. we got the the port of brisbane around 8, to catch the 8:30 ferry over to moreton island. the ferry crossing was long, about 1.75 hours. our first stop once we got on the island was called the desert, where we went sandboarding. it was super fun! the walk up the hill wasn't easy, and we were all huffin' and puffin' up the mountain for our second ride down! mike and i both ate sand.





after sandboarding and temporarily breaking my camera with sand in the lens, we off-roaded some more to the blue lagoon, where we were allowed to go for a swim before lunch. so, mike and i threw on our "togs" (read swimsuits) in some random person's tent and then took a 10 minute walk to the blue lagoon. this is a freshwater lake, and cold! after a week of spending time in the warm fiji waters, i waded in up to my knees and i was done. mike went in, and caught a little shrimp swimming by.

we had sammies for lunch, got back in the landcruiser, and made our way up to the headlands to see the lighthouse and try to see some ocean life. from the cliffs, we were able to see sea turtles swimming and popping up to the surface. the water was so beautiful there. and the coolest thing: we saw a momma humpback whale and her calf jumping out of the water. i think we had a better view than the whale watching boat out there.



we then made our way down to the beach where there are several shipwrecked boats near the shore, and you can snorkel around there. however, i am wimp, and the water was so cold. mike tried his hand at fishing with the sand pippies that we caught on the eastern beach. no bites, and then the micat ferry came to shore to pick us up to go home.