Make the most of your weekends, if you have little time and less money, you can still enjoy a holiday in Brisbane without breaking the budget. Try all or any of these ten delights:
See Australian wildlife in Brisbane - and no I’m not talking about the possums!
Have an island holiday minutes from Brisbane
Go to the Gabba for cricket or footy
Enjoy Brisbane views with a difference
A uniquely Australian holiday is one spent in the outdoors - camping grounds are popular spots for family holidays, and a good place to get away from international tourists. To experience a holiday where you will see very few foreign tourists, go camping at Cotton Tree Camping Grounds on the Sunshine Coast. The tree shaded camp is perched between the river mouth and the sea, so there is both the surf and the wide placid waters of the rivers. We spent most days just lying on the beach reading while the kids and other active persons swam to the sandbar or paddled about in the estuary. Early morning walks along the sea or river are easy to do from the campsite.
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| From Cotton Tree |
Beautiful beaches, fantastic fishing and amazing animals are just an hour away from Brisbane at a
spot that’s still refreshingly free of commercial type tourist development. So if you want a bit of everything and no crowds head over to Bribie Island. It’s a day trip that suits families, or singles or couples, and if you
like you can stay longer, there is plenty of accommodation. Bribie is connected to the mainland by a
bridge, so there’s no boat involved. Bongaree is the village on the Pumicestone Passage side, and
Woorim is on the surf side. The drive between them is a short stretch of native bush.
For a unique Australian experience, take a beach holiday, add some camping, and get close and
personal with turtles, all without venturing into the wilderness. For a weekend that appeals to families
and nature lovers alike, visit Mon Repos Park just outside Bundaberg to see the largest
concentration of nesting marine turtles on the eastern Australian mainland every year from November
to March. So for all those in your family who are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans, you’ll enjoy this adventure. As you near Bundaberg you’ll drive through green fields of sugarcane, that remind you of
rural Punjab or UP, except that these are low rolling slopes unlike the flat plains of the north India.
Join a ranger-guided turtle viewing tour that starts from the information centre from 7pm. Turtle tours
run 7 days a week (except for 24, 25 and 31 December) and entry is through the information centre.
During the turtle season (November to late March) the Park and information centre is open 24 hours
a day, but public access to the beach is closed from 6pm to 6am.
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So you want a quick, easy and cheap island adventure in Brisbane? You are sick and tired of people telling you all about Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Island, Straddie and so on when you are looking for a day’s outing with a spend of perhaps less than $20? You know you are Indian if you said yes to the above, and one or more of the below:
You just found Coochiemudlo Island down in Redlands Shire. Just half an hour from Garden City by car, or a bit more by bus to Victoria Point, where you catch a ferry for a seven minute ride to an escape to a little island that feels a million miles away.
So, you want to go to the beach? The funny thing is that in Brisbane, you don’t go to the beach, you go down to the coast. And to make it even more adventurous for you, there are two “coasts”, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. Every Indian tourist or Student visits the Gold Coast almost immediately, as it’s easy to get to, and usually you will know some Indian acquaintances who live or study there. But it takes longer for them to venture to the Sunshine Coast, so here are some reasons and suggestions. The Sunshine Coast is north of Brisbane, Australia and spreads across 65 kilometers of beaches, resorts, mountains and amazing experiences. You can skydive, do four wheel driving, bushwalk, rock climb or just laze about on the beach!
You can’t get a better Australian experience than visiting an Australian homestead in the bush. To experience Australian life and rural culture you need to get away from the City, luckily it’s just two hours out of Brisbane. Jondaryan Woolshed is 170km from Brisbane; and you can see sheep-shearing, sheep dog exhibitions, heritage crafts, farm cooking, old machinery in Australia’s oldest woolshed. It is an easy day-trip from Brisbane, and weekends are the best, when volunteers demonstrate many of the skills that country dwellers had. There’s a variety of rudimentary build ing, from a boundary riders’ jhopdi (hut), to the 1882 Happy Vale school building, and the Peranga Lockup of 1898. (Seeing the old fashioned buildings and machinery is amazing - it is so primitive compared to the Taj Mahal or Ajanta-Ellora - it gives you an insight into modern Australia..)
Feeding the dolphins in Moreton Bay is a rare and unique Brisbane adventure. However, it’s not a cheap option, you will need to stay at least a night at the resort to enjoy the evening dolphin feeding experience, where the friendly gods of the deep come in to be handfed by reverent worshippers! This is an experience that is almost divine, somehow you feel you are in a holy place offering puja. This is the ultimate natural Pashupati temple.
The other day I met a student from Pune, who bemoaned the fact that she had been in Australia for a year, and had never seen a koala or a kangaroo! For an Australian wildlife adventure, you don’t have to go far into the outback, or even very far out of Brisbane. There is plenty of animal action in or around Brisbane. In fact, the first australian adventure is accessible by bus, you can catch a bus from Queen Street Station and get real close and personal to kangaroos and koalas in Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
Lone Pine Sanctuary is about 15 minutes from Brisbane city centre on Jesmond Rd, Fig Tree
Pocket. You can get there by boat, or bus. It’s good value for a day trip, as you can take your lunch and snacks and drinks and make a picnic of it, as well as getting some really good photos of Australian wildlife to send home.
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I was feeling Hot hot hot? Brisbane weather was too much like Madras or Bombay , and you
feel you can’t take another humid sweltering day that has turned the whole town into a sauna-like day,
How would you like to enjoy an really cool night, ice and cold without travelling to the Antartic or Arctic.
