Dancing in the Street

Tuesday November 6th - Saturday November 10th

After the great weekend we'd had sailing around the Whitsundays and the equally good night out at the end of it I think we were both a little drained and it took us a couple of days to get ourselves back up to speed. The long drives that we had each day along what the Rough Guide describes as a "famously unexciting stretch of the Bruce Highway" didn't lend themselves to fun and frolics either.

Still, at the end of the day we're thousands of miles away from it all and driving through Australia so we soon got ourselves sorted out and headed for the National Parks again to do some walking. We headed to the Glasshouse Mountains just north of Brisbane and climbed a couple of them (there's 13 in all). We thought the one called Death Mountain was probably left well alone so went for Beerburrum (Rainbow Mountain) and Ngungun (Black Mountain) instead. The first one was supposed to be an easy climb so after 25 minutes of climbing almost vertically we collapsed at the top and got great views out over the other mountains and away in the distance Brisbane. We were the only ones on the mountains and the rushes of fresh air and stretching our legs had done us wonders so we headed off to Brisbane in good spirits.

The good vibes obviously paid off as we had a great day in Brisbane. Managing to avoid the temptation of going to the cricket (again Rach's idea!) we headed into the city centre and spent a happy couple of hours looking around before making for the South Bank area for Friday evening drinks and a nice meal followed by a stroll along the river. On our way back through town we stumbled across a small gathering of people that steadily grew as salsa music blasted out and what was described as only one of two free outdoor salsa lessons in the world started up. Before long there were around 50 people involved, including Rach (I had to take some photos!) and they salsaed their way around the pavement for a good 40 minutes.

We decided that as we'd had such a good day in Brisbane that we would push on further south and headed once again for the National Parks, this time Lamington and the Green Mountains. We got out and about and had a good walk and also strolled along the treetop walkway that included a climb up a tree, around 30m, to a platform that gave you a view over the canopy of the rainforest. Fantastic views and thankfully there was only a gentle breeze so the tree was only gently swaying.