Oakbridge Hotel & Apartments

Our second day down under has come to an end. We have now checked in at our cozy granny flat in Mermaid Waters (Gold Coast) and will stay here for the next four weeks. I so look forward to not living in our suitcases, have a look at what we got in them and buy whatever we need.

It was raining when we woke up today. When we checked out at 10am, we weren’t really in the mood to go out, but the drizzle wasn’t too bad, and our sense of adventure got the better of us. We put the bags in the hotel and went on a walkabout. Even if it was grey and a bi of drizzle, it wasn’t so bad. 19C and the rain was barely noticable. It got warm as soon as we walked, but a bit chilly when we sat down. It’s very comfortable. But colder than in Sweden right now apparently, haha!

We walked across Story Bridge and through Kangaroo Point and along the Brisbane River to Southbank. We had a coffee at The Jetty, walked around, hid from swooping birds (no, we didn’t, it’s not swooping season yet, but Mikael had a small bird almost flying into his head honestly), saw the man-made beach Streets Beach, were super tourist-y by the BRISBANE sign, watched the Wheel of Brisbane (a copy of Lisebergshjulet) and spent some time inside the Queensland Museum.

The Queensland Museum was free and we watched both of their current exhibitions; Insect Agency and Dinosaurs Unearthed: Explore Prehistoric Queensland. Did you know that there are 1,25 million insects to every human on Earth? Or that Australia imported beetles 50 years ago to deal with a huge pasture poo problem? Or that three quarters of all of Australia’s 450 species of butterflies live in Qld? I really enjoyed that exhibition on insects. Mikael got really tired (and doesn’t like bugs for some reasons, something new I learned about him after more than four years) and we didn’t spend as much time as I wanted in the dinosaur exhibition. It was so interesting. The magafauna of Australia, wow! Supercool!

Mikael skipped lunch because he had troubles with his stomach after last night’s pasta. But I got hungry so we went to a sushi place in Queen Street. In Australia, you get a sushi roll whole, and eat it like it is. So weird. But it was soooo good! Also, the soy was packaged in small fish bottles. Very cute!

We walked back to the hotel, ordered an uber and Mikael fell asleep in the car down to Mermaid Waters. Since we arrived, we have had a lovely video call with his dad and wife and will now go to bed, at 8pm 😊 We are exhausted to say the least. 18k steps yesterday, 15k steps today. 33h of traveling the day before and lots of emotions.

We have arrived down under! And more specifically in Brisbane, Queensland. We flew in last night at 8pm after 28h traveling. 33h door to door, which isn’t too bad considering where we are, haha! It took us 32h to Malapascua, Philippines and that was only for a two week vacation. Although, there might be a bit more to see and explore in Australia (a whole continent) than Malapascua, a 5sq km big island with no motor traffic.

Yesterday (the past two days?) was chaotic and stressful. The day started with us having to leave behind two 23kg suitcases since we had been promised that extra bags at the airport would cost 2000 SEK each. But when they told us they would be 13 000 SEK, we had to leave them behind for our mom’s to take home. I think most of my clothes were in one of them. Most of Mikael’s shoes. Our diving equipment… That was the first set back.

Our first flight to London was short but okay, nothing special. Three hours layover in London, then onto the 17h flight to Perth with Qantas that turned into a bit more than 16 due to good conditions. That’s a long flight! But it was really nice. Good service, good food, free snack and drink bar, good places to stand up and stretch. I had a bit of bad luck with my window neighbor. A plus size person. It was fine up until they fell asleep and just couldn’t keep their arms together and one of them kept falling down on me. Every two seconds for about half an hour. I didn’t really get to enjoy the full seat I paid for which was setback number two.

The flight was on time, but we still only had an hour before the connecting flight to Brisbane. So the crew put us closer to the front so we could get off the plane quicker.

Perth Airport was surprisingly small, considering it is the gateway to Australia basically. We had to retrieve our bags to check them in again after going through customs and border control. This was setback number three. One of the bags had ripped open in the zipper. At this point, I was kinda just laughing at the trail of underwear the bag must have left behind, haha. Good thing we vacuum packed most of our stuff.

Border Control was super quick, asked us if everything we declared (wood works – Dalahästar, small wooden and painted horses from middle of Sweden, feathers and shells – on the dream catchers we got from Mikael’s mom, and Mikaels prescribed medication) came from Sweden and didn’t even ask to see it, even if we presented them to her anyway. We were grateful, with nothing to hide, and super stressed out about the connecting flight. At the new check-in desk, we got some tape to hold the bag together as much as we could and then went straight to the gate, straight onto the plane and were among the very last people to board. Insane!

I thought there would be a setback number four when we saw that a full rugby team joined our flight. But they were so quiet during the whole flight and I managed to get some sleep after catching up with people with amazing flight wifi!

Taxi to our hotel, where we had amazing view over Story Bridge. Went to bed at around 11pm and had a hard time getting up at 9am so we wouldn’t miss breakfast.

We stayed in the hotel room for a bit after and didn’t head out until at like 2pm. I don’t know if we were still tired, but we were so cold in the room. People are not joking about that!

Today was all about walking around CBD, shopping what we “lost” and always asking ourselves if we were truly here. It is unreal!

After half a day walking around here, I have to say that I do have a good feeling about this city. I know we only saw a small portion of it, but it was pleasant and not as big as we initially thought. On the map, it looks like Brisbane is just a lot of urban sprawl with family houses and everything central, is pretty much within walking distance. I might have to change that statement once we’ve seen more of the city, haha!

We walked to Brisbane City Botanic Garden where we saw bin chickens (White Ibis is more correct I guess) and water dragons (lizards, didn’t get a picture of them unfortunately, only a video on Instagram stories). It’s so cool seeing something out of the ordinary Swedish wildlife.

I got a couple of new pants since I think all of mine except the ones I flew here in (which I was planning on throwing away). Mikael got a new pair of shoes after walking around in thongs (flip flops) all day, haha.

We thought it would be easy to find a restaurant by the river, but it turned out to only be bars. And the one we actually found and sat down by was expensive. But it was our first night out in Australia, so we made it a bit luxurious.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw a huge flying fox! It even stopped in a tree to hang upside down just above our heads for a few seconds before flying away again. So cool!

We have also made our family members get Instagram and Snapchat so we can spam them with videos and pictures instantaneously, haha!