Mt Coot-Tha Lookout

After spending Christmas on the Gold Coast we returned to Brisbane to say our goodbyes to Filip, who had a flight to Cambodia to catch. For our final trip together we headed to the Mt Coot-tha Reserve, a 15 minute drive west from the city to take in the views of Brisbane and complete a last bushwalk together. After Filip had left, Jack and I stayed in Brisbane to work a while before heading to Newcastle for a wedding. The final two photographs of Brisbane in this post are taken from a different lookout point in South Brisbane, near to where we were staying.

Skypoint Observation Deck

As part of the cost of the Skypoint climb (seen in Friday’s post), you are given entry to the observation deck, which can be used anytime on the day of your climb. The evening after our climb, Jack and I returned to the observation deck for a drink and a chance to take my own photos of the view.

Skypoint Climb

Surfers Paradise is home to the Q1 building, “the world’s tallest residential tower” and we decided to climb it. As you may have noticed from some of my earlier posts, Jack loves any opportunity to leave the ground and climb to new heights, remember that tree climb? So we booked ourselves onto a morning climb. Unlike the tree climb, this one involved a harness to keep you connected to the building. We climbed from the observation deck, already 230m above the ground, to the Bird’s Nest up a specially built metal staircase on the outside of the building. The Bird’s Nest was the highest point in the Skypoint Climb and at 270m I was thankful for my harness! Safety procedures meant that you weren’t allowed your own cameras on the climb (its 14 years in prison if you drop anything off the edge!) and so all the photos in this post were taken by the climb team. More information about the climb can be found here on Skypoint’s website.

Fraser Island

Fraser Island… the world’s largest sand island. Being made entirely of sand you can only drive on the island if you have 4WD, so we left our Commodore in Noosa and joined a tag-along tour. We spent three days and two nights exploring the island with other backpackers and had so much fun. During the tour we got the chance to drive the 4x4s along the beaches and through inland tracks to see the lakes and the famous Maheno shipwreck.