Brisbane

This was my first time in Brisbane and I really liked it. Enda and Tracy had given us some top tips of places to see and things to do, and even though we only had a few days there I seemed to keep pretty busy. As usual this involved walking around the city a lot, but it's a very easy city to get around.

Brisbane is famous for it's temperate climate, and I certainly felt it when strolling around the lovely botanic gardens where we had a great free guided tour with two old biddies (yet again just happening to time our arrival with the start of the tour). I also loved the Roma Street parkland, with it's tropical gardens and profusion of massive spiders (one of the other things Brisbane is famous for is, of course, it's creepy crawlies).

I also got to explore the town hall with it's tower on one of my city strolls, and we both toured the various museums and galleries. I loved the man-made beach along by the river too, although both times there I forgot my swimming togs, so could only paddle about the place really, but it's really well done and a great spot I reckon.

So although it was a pity not to get to explore around Brisbane, especially the famous Gold Coast, we only had a few days in the area, and I enjoyed pottering about the city. Surfer Paradise etc. will have to wait for my next visit I reckon.

Next stop was Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand. Coming back to New Zealand to try and see it properly had always been a major motivation for this whole trip for me (along with India), so I suppose I'd been looking forward to hitting New Zealand since before I left. At the same time I didn't want to have too high an expectation (since that wouldn't be very Buddhist of me would it, living in the future instead of the present moment, and all that), but something told me I wouldn't be disappointed - and it turns out I was right.