The boys on the hunt in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens
Having flirted with the NSW QLD border for the best part of
a week, we finally left Tweed Heads and said goodbye to NSW. Our first stop was Brisbane and a night away
from the van. We had ascertained in
Tweed Heads that the van had done a pump and needed a new one. Fortunately we had found a caravan repairer
in Brisbane (Arrow Caravan) that could do it the day we were due to leave Tweed
(phew – a number of others we contacted were fully booked, one until
July!!!!). So for the first time we
packed an overnight bag said goodbye to Cool George and headed to a Maccas down
the road to use their wifi and find a bed for the night. Got to love the internet, we got a really
cheap deal on a two bedroom apartment with views, Foxtel, across the road from
cool shops. We went to the apartment and
did nothing the rest of the day. The
boys watched cartoons and David and I sat in different rooms – we all had
space. Interestingly neither David nor I
slept well, was it the ooh so much larger bed, the very convenient and close
toilet, or the lack of whispering to keep quiet so the boys could sleep, or maybe
it was the ultra crisp and clean sheets (not an iota of sand or dirt to be
seen). It suddenly struck me – our van
had become our real home. I also had my
first inkling – we may have some adjusting to do on returning to our Canberra home.
Our van wasn’t going to be ready until late the next day so
we went to the Botanical Gardens and the Planetarium (after all there aren’t a
whole lot of opportunities to see a planetarium throughout Australia). Brisbane Botanical Gardens are really beautiful and the gardens had this totally delightful Hide ’n’
Seek children’s trail full of really gorgeous sculptures for kids to find.
This walk was explained to us by a very helpful park
attendant who lead us to the first thing to find on the map. From then on the boys were hooked. They charged around the gardens, maps in hand,
navigating us in search of funky fungi, a bat orchestra, musical chairs and
much more. In the end we ran out of time
as we had booked a show at the Planetarium.
So out of the rainforest and into space we went.
The usual planetarium show was not running that day instead
we were able to join a school educational program – luckily for us the Year 9
one was earlier in the day and we were able to join the Year 3 group. The boys had a whale of a time. Not only is a planetarium a seriously super
cool thing to do (please remember this is the blog of a self-confessed science
nerd), especially if you haven’t seen one before, but they got to participate
in an age appropriate educational session.
Our boys being the quiet reserved chappies they are, soon had their
hands up with the rest of the kids chiming in answers to the facilitators questions
(seems they have been absorbing information from our Brian Cox DVDs).
Anyway we had time for a quick afternoon tea and into the
car to go pick up Cool George (well we thought we had plenty of time) and then
straight into a very large traffic jam OUCH.
This made us late to pick up the van and late to the caravan park (we
only just made it before the office closed). But worst of all – we had to park
the van in total DARKNESS!!!!!!!!!! Lets
just say this took several attempts (maybe a few more than that if truth be
told). The caravan park had a number of
good aspects but their site lighting was not one of those. At the end of all this we unhitched and
wandered seemingly aimlessly looking for food.
Then a light appeared (well the whole of Buderim actually) we found and
ate food and went home for a good night sleep back in our familiar friendly
home.
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