Somewhere in... enjoying Queensland

So it really happened after one more day on a beautiful beach in Byron Bay we woke up at 5:30am (the night was still dark with the australian star-field sky above us) and drove in our campervan with a great speed to Brisbane to meet Brian & his cousin Phil... We haven't woken up so early for a long time (even though we were trying to catch up with our alarm clock, which was not so successfull:). When our lovely GPS got us to the Phil's house the boat for the Moreton Island was ready to go. We sailed for approximately for 30 minutes before we got to a fantastic sandy island surrounded by turquoise clear water.

Gorgeous place to relax and enjoy couple of beers when floating in the sea. This is as well what we have been doing. (yes, I know it sounds really stressfull) By the beach there were couple of artificially sunken boats, to create a perfect environment for snorkling. Phil was ready for everything and had couple of fish as a bait. Snorkling was just great, like small Great Barrier Rief with all kinds of colourful fish eating of our hands the bait we were giving to them. We were so lucky to see as well wobbygong (huge teethless, vegetarian shark). I think we were snorkling forever, forgetting time, place, what day or date it is ( though this we might have forgotten already before:).

On the way back (as we didn't have any more beers and had to go home to refill) we saw the real shark, sting rays and lots of huge sea turtles, star fish, stone fish (I would say, the Nemo movie all over again!) Brian had to leave the next day to Melbourne, but Phil and his wife Catarina offered us to stay one more night with them in their gorgeous house (I really do like the Australian style of living, everybody has huge houses with lots of space). So we just chilled out by their swimming pool, watched some films in TV and as they were going to a party, we "baby sit" their cute dog Ruben.

Sunday is a perfect day to get the boat again on the water and sail on the river around Brisbane. I actually can't imagine better way of introducing Brisbane to tourists:) This was the best view of Brisbane and you feel kind of special when you look at all the tourists on the ferries and you are cruising the river in a private boat. We stopped in an expo area for a beer and had just the perfect Sunday afternoon.

We have realised as well we are kind of tired and we would like to stay on one place little bit longer. (Even though we have JUST 2 more weeks in Australia!) That is why we are still in Brisbane and enjoying company of our two new couchsurfers Jo & Simon (we are wondering around Brisbane, sleeping a lot in a nice bed - it is a good change to our Abba campervan, looking at their wedding photos:) - and getting ideas....) So it is perfect. We will be moving tomorrow north of the Golden coast and making our way to Cairns (which is 1700 km from here!) after we pass the obligatory check of our car. We have as well unfortunately lost ouf diary:( where we had the whole itinerary planned, so we need to find out again how and where we are going (So I can say we are a little bit "lost" in Australia:)

And just a small comment for those who knew that I was trying to pass my German certificate (Das grosse deutsche Sprachdiplom) by Goethe Institut - the results came and .... YES, I have my certificate !!! HURAY!

So please, feel free to celebrate for me a little bit.... We will!