We are back!!!

 Yes our job is now complete with the Canadian F3A Team and we are continuing on with the next part of our journey. The team has all split up with Kelly and myself staying on in Warwick one more night.

After a final breakfast together, Kelly and I headed off to Stanthorpe to check out some places of interest.  Kelly had a plan so we are going off on an adventure… “I have a route all planned out” she said and we are going to the Stanthorpe Heritage Museum.  "We are taking the back route. " Off we go and I am following the CarPlay map….. ah it’s not the back route. Kelly is mad that the GPS is not taking her the route she wanted.... I'm just following the map. 

We did eventually get to the Museum and has a couple hour tour of the place. Mostly early 1900's leaning to the 1960's. Lots of neat items like sewing machines, tools and old clothes as well as farm machinery. 

Heritage Museum

Clocks

 

Just like G&G Lee

Traps

 

Saws

 

Press

Sewing machine paradise... almost!

Steam Tractor

 

Kelly was fading fast so we decided to head back to Warwick. She needed something to keep her going so we stopped at the Sutton Juice factory.  She had some pie while I drank some apple juice.. very good!

With the week of early mornings and long days, we headed back to Warwick. I dropped her off and went and topped up on gas.  I got caught up on the team blog and we had a facetime with Kris at home. All good.

Dinner tonight was fish & chips. Easy! We walked back and Kelly started sorting out her bags and purchases... so many! Is the car big enough?

We chilled in the room and watched a bit of TV... all very relaxed after a busy week.

Off to the Sunshine Coast tomorrow!

Brisbane to Warwick

 Up early today and after our showers, we packed our big bags as Chad is taking them directly to Warwick. This saves us having to take them back to the airport when we pick up our rental car.

Chad's van loaded!

The Northeast's headed off to Warwick and we went back up to the room to facetime with Kris. He helped sort out a phone issue we have had since getting our data package. All good now.

We checked out and after a nice breakfast, headed to the Milton Train Station.  We caught the first eastbound train to Central station and then connected to the Airtrain to the domestic terminal.

A quick check of our passports and driver's license's and we were off in our "mid size" Kia.

Kelly saying... "This is mid sized?"

Our journey now takes a "work break" as we prepare for the 2023 World Championships for Precision Aerobatics. The event runs to August 26th and then we will be exploring the Warwick area before heading back to the coast for part 3 of our Australian trip. 

Team Canada F3A 2023 Blog is at https://teamcanadaf3a2023.blogspot.com/

Brisbane Day 4

 Up early to finish the blog... could not keep my eyes open last night!  Anyway we have had Chad & Agnes over for coffee and they brought some danish to nibble on... very good!

Chad said the BBQ hosted by Mark Hu was well attended by pilots and the food was great. They also had a pool table to help entertain the boys.  We did some planning and they headed off to get a day pass for transit... we will retrace some steps with them today. 

 We grabbed the ferry and planned to travel the full length of the river but the ferry on this run today had limited outside seating. We decided to jump off at Southbank and toured the Japanese gardens, the Brisbane sign and then the Beach pools. Lots of lizards out as well!

Ferry ride.

Thomas getting a close up.

We took the Goodwill Pedestrian Bridge over to the QUT ferry and headed downstream. With lunchtime approaching, we got off at Seaside and strolled the walkway to Felon's Brewery. Pizza for lunch and a cold beverage.  After that we went up on the upper road to the Wilson Outlook Reserve.

Maritime Museum.

A couple felons.

 

View above Felons Brewery from Wilson Lookout.

 

We returned towards Seaside on the pathway and then headed over to Queen St to do some shopping.. hats, shirts etc. All good.

Chad and I grabbed a beverage and chatted while the crew did some shopping. Thomas tried his best to improve Chad's score on a game but it didn't work out to well I am told. 

Lots of steps today so we headed back to the hotel. The boys wanted Italian for dinner so back we went to La Dolce Vita. It was great.

Off to the rack after some blogging.... running out of steam in the evening so getting it done in the morning.

Sunrise this morning (15th) while i blogged.

Brisbane Day 3

 Up early as reports are coming in from both Scotland & Campbell River regarding our pipe band family exploits. Cody & Krystal played with North Stratton Pipe Band (from Edmonton) at Berwick, Scotland today and placed 1st in Grade 2... well done! Also Kris & Anna are playing in Campbell at the Highland Games with the Greater Victoria Police Pipe Band. They had a blast... came fisrt in their grade and also won the "beer garden concert contest". Very good!

Had a quick Facetime visit with my mom & dad in St. Albert then Kelly prepared some Starbucks coffee for us as we started to plan for today's explorations!

First a ferry ride from Milton to North Shore Hamilton to get a good view of the route structure and see the different buildings along the river.  This took us as far up the river as possible on the Kittycat ferries.

 

 

 

 

 Amazing views as we headed out towards the ocean.... only went as far as North Shore Hamilton and turned around back toward the city center. We stopped at Seaside and found a nice place for brunch... even managed to order & pay through my phone! We also saw the coach and some players of the French women’s soccer team!

"Brunchtime" at Seaside!

We decided to walk along the shoreline and this took us back through the Botanical Gardens again... very nice! We grabbed the QUT ferry over to South Bank and explored that area. The #7 Ferris wheel was calling and in short order, we took a ride.

We then walked along the pathway through the Japanese Gardens to the famous Brisbane sign.

Next was a walk down towards the Streets Beach Area were they have several pools available for swimming... all very well laid out. Harper would have a blast here!

A quick stop for a couple of "cold beverages" at the Ship Inn and then over the Goodwill Walking Bridge to the QUT ferry... again! LOL  

We headed back to the hotel and met up with Chad, Agnes and their two boys Mathew and Thomas. They visited with us then headed off to a BBQ hosted by Mark Hu & family.   Kelly and I went down the road and enjoyed an Italian dinner at La Dolce Vita. 

Home to blog but cratered in the chair.. so the blogs a bit late.. oh well.

Tomorrow we will go exploring with the Northeast's.

Brisbane Day 2

 Up early as my body clock is out of wack with the time change.  I took the opportunity to finish off the updates for both the team blog as well as this one. Once Kelly got up, I walked down the street and picked up some coffee's for us from the Coffee Club.  Large Flat White was the call today and they tasted very good.

We grabbed the CityCat Ferry from Milton to QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and took the Bunya walk around the edge of the Brisbane River. Just a beautiful walk along the shore into the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens. There was a geocache up on the Goodwill pedestrian bridge so we quickly logged that after spotting the micro. Lots of people there!

A Brisbane River selfie.

 The following pictures are of our botanical garden walkabout...... and another geocache!

My bird expert Mark says this is a Yellow Throated Miner... and he's correct!.

 

 

 

A friendly Ibis

 We walked back towards Queen Street and took the ferry to the Regatta ferry terminal to check out the mall. It was... a mall. :-)  A couple items filled the backpack... 2L water, Starbucks Coffee and some cane sugar!

The old and the new.

 

View from the ferry.

We walked back towards the ferry terminal and had lunch at the Regatta Hotel. A burger and pint/wine to help lift our now tired bodies.  A quick ferry ride followed and we returned to the Cosmo to drop the supplies.... I was fading again and laid down for a short nap.. well not too short :-)

Lots of soccer uniforms in sight as Australia is playing France in FIFA Women's World Cup quarterfinal match at Suncorp Stadium (less than a kilometer from our hotel!)  We are watching and cheering on our Australian hosts!

 

Dinner tonight was some chinese takeout from the China Sea restaurant downstairs... very tasty!  We continued to watch the football game until Australians won it in the shoot out... which went back and forth in true drama to the tenth penalty shot! Kelly could hear the stadium erupt on the balcony!

The Northeast family is traveling from Calgary via Vancouver on Air Canada's flight AC35 to Brisbane tonight... check that... it's delayed until 1:20 am on the 12th now so we are expecting them mid morning tomorrow...... sometime on the 13th here.  Gotta love these time shifts!

  

 

Travel Day(s)

 Departure day has finally come and with it the elevated level of angst for Kelly... would the flight get cancelled? Would we not make it over to get the connecting flight to Brisbane? Would they not accept our boarding passes? Will the bags make it? 

Kris dropped us off at the Victoria airport and we were now officially off! ....... and... almost as expected, the flight over to Vancouver was delayed due to "Air Traffic constraints"... this is code for manpower shortages within Nav Canada and the controlled flow of arrivals into YVR.  We were finally airborne at 21:18 and would easily make our connection... Kelly could now breathe!

A quick stop at the Air Canada Suites Lounge for a beverage and bite then we headed to the gate for our flight to Brisbane. Bluetooth connections confirmed our baggage was onboard as well. The plane left 15 minutes late but with favorable winds, would arrive early into BNE. 

Checking the menu.

 

Dinner was served after departure and we both slept from 2 a.m. onward. My rest was eventually interrupted by a small child crying "I want bacon" a couple rows over.... at first I had the same thought LOL...  but after five minutes of this it was clear that sleep time was over... it was 9 am on my body clock so no big deal. 

With the late night departure out of YVR, the sun didn't show itself until about 1-1/2 hours before before landing. We had a spectacular sunrise of course.

 

Sunrise at 41,000 feet

Thanks for the 787 ride!

A relatively quick transit through Customs and Immigration and we headed off to get some cell phone data and train passes in the terminal. I wanted Telstra coverage as it is supposed to be the best in the area we will be in... but no retailer at the airport sheesh... lots of others with good deals but I was looking for this particular network.

Moving onward we headed up to the train station and bought a 5 day all inclusive transit pass. This covers ferries, trains, and busses around the city and it's outskirts. Perfect for us.

Very similar to the tube in London!

We caught the next train into the city with a transfer at Brisbane Central Station to the Springfield Line and then on to Milton Station. The only trick to this is to be sure to tap on and off at the start & end of your journey.  Once at the station, we used the lifts to go up and down as we had many bags! 

We hoofed it up and over the hill on Park Road, past all the small shops along the way and arrived at our accommodation at the Cosmo Apartment Hotel after about 7 minutes of walking. It is 9 am and we are really early so the plan was to store our bags and explore the area until we could get our room. As luck would have it, it was available and our check in was quickly completed by Amelia. Key cards in hand, we headed for the 4th floor corner unit.

 

 The room is well equipped and will do nicely.... and has a great view of the city. 

We partially unpacked and made a plan to get a few supplies for the next few days. There was an IGA just up the road so after a quick clothing change... into shorts as it's 26C out there, we headed off. First up was a coffee stop at Mary Ryan's Books (and coffee!) then off to the IGA. It's located along a nice little strip mall with lots of neat shops and eateries. We grabbed a few items and stopped at the liquor store as well.. Kelly's favorite Australian wine (Squealing Pig) was "On Sale" at 2 for $30 AUD!!  Good thing I brought the back pack. One thing is clear to us though... it is not cheap to buy food, drink or anything else here in Australia.

Once back at the hotel, we unloaded the supplies and, using the "My Translink" app, determined the ferry times for a trip into the city. I wanted to go to the Telstra store and get our Phones set up with data using an e-sim. (No more changing sim cards in and out) 

 The Milton ferry dock is a stones throw from the hotel so off we went on the next leg of the adventure.  We watched several ferries come & go and then boarded the Milton-North Quay one.... 6 minutes later we disembarked and walked up to the main Queen Street area. This turns into a huge pedestrian walkway lined with high end shops, bars etc... very nice area.

 

 

The Neville Bonner Bridge under construction.

The old Treasury Building.. now a Casino & restaurant

We found the Telstra outlet and it is set up much like any apple store with staff buzzing around but unfortunately, they could not set us up unless we had our passports (something required due to us being from another country). I took one for the team and let Kelly stay and shop (yes I know... very dangerous!) while I returned to the hotel to retrieve said passports. What a guy!

A quick retrace of my route and within 45 minutes I was back for a 2 pm appointment with a Telstra rep. It all went well and we soon had our data package ($45 AUD for 45 gb) after checking with Kris via Facetime re: e-sim setup etc.  Kelly took me to a few sites that she thought interesting. We were starting to sag a bit with jet lag, excitement and many steps on the counter.

Albert Street First United Church

City Hall

Some serious art deco going on here!

 A stop at the Pig & Whistle pub for a Pims & Pint of Guinness and we headed back towards the hotel. We enjoyed the ferry ride back but Kelly was complaining about the tap on feature of the ferry .. seams the card would not work for her.... well it was the hotel key card so no, they don't work as well. We had a laugh and enjoyed the ride back to Milton. We headed up Park Rd and went to the Tuk Tuk Restaurant for dinner... a very good meal in neat setting.

Back to the room and I was fading fast... a quick shower and I was lights out at 6:30pm... done! Kelly stayed up and extended herself as long as she could trying to assimilate into the time zone.

Our evening view.

Tomorrow's plan.... more touristy stuff :-)

Pre-flight day!

 Kelly has spent the last couple days packing, rethinking, repacking, packing, thinning, repacking, removing, re-adding... then reconsidering, repacking... etc.. hey it's a process!  I breeze in and have my stuff laid out and ready to go, including travel items, in under an hour... it's the pilot in me after 40 years of overnight bags!

 One last meetup at Brewskies Pub (our usual Tuesday gathering of both retired and active pilots) and then home to finish packing. Both our phones chimed our ability to "check in" and Kelly's excitement meter peg out! It's happening!

Some final things to go over in the morning and a lunch BBQ with family before catching our flight from Victoria to Vancouver later that evening.