Yeah it was great - Queensland

Across the water lies the city of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland state. Queensland is the state at the north-east corner of Australia and Brisbane is situated towards the south, along the coast. Further on below Brisbane would be the Gold Coast and Surfer's Paradise. Brisbane is a lovely city - smaller than Sydney and Melbourne - and has a quaint feel to it. In fact, you could probably spend one day there and be fully oriented with the city.


And that's me with the city in the background. The river you see is the Brisbane river which is murky brown in colour. Behind me, you can see a pontoon out on the river. This is where the CityCat river services stop. Its basically a kind of river taxi system that people can use to get around to places along the river. The CityCat runs from Apollo Road near Hamilton city to the University of Queensland (UQ).


Down south at the Gold Coast, lies several theme parks - Dream World, WhiteWater World, Movie World, Wet'n'Wild Water World and Sea World. As you can see, we went to Movie World.


That's one of the roller coasters we went on - Lethal Weapon. It's essentially a hanging roller coaster where there's no floor beneath you, just air and the wheels are on top of your head. So you can imagine what it's like when you reach the top of the track and start to hurtle down. When you go up the loop, all you see is the sky. I suppose it does give you that extra element of speed, especially when you're closer to the ground and can see it rushing beneath you. Lethal Weapon was good, I really enjoyed that one.


This is the much talked about Superman Escape roller coaster. At 40 metres high, it dominates the skyline at movie world. The ride starts when you board the Metropolis Rapid Transit (interestingly enough, abbreviated to the MRT which is what we call our subway here) amid reports of tremors in the city. As you progress on, you see the various effects of the tremors (cars falling into collapsed sections of the tunnel, burst pipes flooding the tracks) and your train comes to a stop. Then superman's voice can be heard... "There's only one way out of here, I'm going to push you. Fast..... Superman fast. Heads back."

And with the swoosh of the smoke machines, you're shot from 0 kmph to 100 kmph in 2 seconds. The roller coaster shoots up the first peak which they call a top hat and slows as the last car reaches and rollers over to pick up speed when the entire train is on the opposite side of the peak. It then goes over several humps and your picture is taken. There were two people in front of us that were cam-whoring, making faces that kinda take the attention to them in our picture. Haha. But we still had fun going on the roller coaster.


That's the rainforest canopy in Cairns. The Skyrail system takes you through the forest to various stations where you can alight and take a walk around for some time to explore the forest area.


That's the view from one of the Skyrail cars. The system stretches for 7.8km and takes you over a mountain range into the valley where the ride ends at Kuranda village. And the cable cars go pretty high up over the forest.


Hey Derek! Having fun? I betcha. Must be a photographer's dreamland to be on the Skyrail.


Welcome to Barron Falls. The original falls were dammed up to facilitate the operation of a Hydroelectric plant.


You can roughly make out where the Barron Falls used to flow.


As you near Kuranda, you sail over the Barron River while witnessing a scenic view pass by.


Derek while we're crossing the Barron River. He's my cousin who took me all the way to Cairns and Port Douglas. And rented the car and stuff. Thanks millions Derek.


Beautiful butterflies at the butterfly sanctuary in Kuranda.



Chrysalis, pupa, whatyoumaycallit... A butterfly will soon emerge from therein.


There's a stunner on the Great Barrier Reef. Oh My Heck! I went to the Great Barrier Reef!!!


Corals, corals, corals!


And proof of me actually going snorkelling. Yeah, wait till I get better at swimming and I won't need any more floatation devices. The blue suit is for protection against UV rays and jellyfish. And I seriously need to learn; 1) to keep my mouth shut tightly when snorkelling so saltwater doesn't enter; 2) to continuously breathe through your mouth and not rely on your nose.


Underwater, its all about colours.


Fish are friends. Not food! Have you seen the size of those guys?? And the colours they have? My goodness. Such diversity!


This guy was probably one of the hugest I saw out there. Like, seriously big.


Coral grows everywhere. Even on the floating platform area. And the fish come up real close. Too bad they didn't let me touch them.


Derek and I after snorkelling for a bit. Teletubbies much?


An electric blue fish. It really jumps out at you.


You're watching the National Geographic Channel. We now return to, Blue Planet. *Cue David Attenborough*


Are those anemones? If so, Nemo is not home. I doubt they are though.


And that's a picture of a picture of me. One of the divers took that photo while I was inside the observatory. You can see people doing that dive-walk thingy where they put this helmet on their heads and can breathe so easily. But they can't go very far, or their system will die on them leading to their demise... maybe.

After snorkelling off Port Douglas, we spent the night in Cairns before taking our early morning flight out to Brisbane. Derek showed me Mount Coot-tha which had a lovely view of Brisbane city. And then I flew back to Melbourne. So that pretty much rounds up my trip to Australia.

This post will be about Queensland state

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