I'm Dreaming of a White..

Christmas time is all about getting together with the closest ones, good food and relaxing. This time the setting was a bit different than usually and the outcome as well. No snow (neither back in Finland thought), no Santa (but still we got AFL ball as a Christmas present) nor the traditional Finnish Christmas foods. Instead we had a good mishmash of traditions from different hemispheres.

Snow - almost, but not really :/

The closest neighbours in the cul-de-sac gathered together to celebrate pre X-mas party. Barbie on a street, egg-gnog with a party-light ice cubes and cosy atmosphere. Evening was nice and long as it turned out.

In Finland the major Christmas celebrations are held already on a Christmas Eve. Santa brings all the Christmas gifts in the evening. This time, we had a massive prawn lunch with champagne, afternoon in a pool to cool ourselves, and a candlelight dinner out in the veranda in warm and dark summer evening. And the evening culminating with Skype calls to Finland.

Christmas is nothing without good old ginger breads. And as Christmas time is full of surprises, the raw version of the cookies delighted the lady of the house. And well, all shapes and sizes.

Yup, the biggest are the sweetest

And with Milk, of course

Glass House Mountains and Caloundra

Australia is full of green hills, forests from dry to tropical, grasslands and mountains. Bush walking is apparently quite a popular national and tourist pass time. The day before Christmas Eve we headed North from Brisbane to the Glass House Mountains. These eleven hills are the remains of the once active volcanoes and some of the mountains have nice hiking tracks. Our goal was to conquer the 253 meter Mt Ngungung. Walking up the hill on a hot day is pretty sweaty stuff, but the 20 minutes climb was definitely worth it: panoramic views were just stunning.

Recommended by a local sign : moderate levels of fitness and bushwalking experience! (wtf)

 And the reward for the hike : panoramic, spectacular view from the high up!

The ultimate hero shots - because it was worth it

After a short stop to local info center on the way back we also learned something about these mountains. The weird name of the group of mountains dates back to Captain Cook. To the local indigenous people, the hills in question are spiritual places. Apparently us, the westerns and the indigenous people of Australia have a rather different conception of these hills : For Westerners, the urge is to challenge and climb to the highest tops (to control the nature) and to the Aboriginals, the virtual is to show respect to the mountains by not climbing them.

Our Day trip continued to Sunshine Coast and Caloundra. First things first: a quick dip into the warm and wavy sea and then a late lunch. We wanted to have something quick and easy and the first place that we encountered promised that they have the "best" fish and chips. Who would settle for less? Seashore picnic with fish and chips and a ginger beer - what a classic combo.

And another reminder to self about coffee in Australia : ordering Ice coffee is a classic mistake you can make, if you expect a latte with ice cubes. Ice coffee, at least on the surfer beaches in Australia, will get you a sort of an ice cream frappucino with heaps of sugar. *Best to avoid*

After a small stroll in the main beach we headed to a bit more quiet one to try kayaking. We had J&A's tandem kayak with us and we took a trip to a nearby sand island. On the way we shared the bay with dozens of windsurfers and that stuff looked quite a bit of fun. When we hit the shore we walked to the other side of the narrow island and J got her first taste of real waves in Australia on a solely long beach.

Noosa Heads

On our second weekend in Brisbane, we fared out to the beach - it's Australia, you have to.

A very customary thing for Aussies in general is that beaches are quite often far away, even hundreads of kilometres away. This is perhaps one of the excuses for the prevalence of SUVs and pickups in the country. But it also makes car trips a part of the daily (or at least weekend) grind. Remember to be democratic about music on the way - you can easily get overloaded with Abba or stuff from the 80's.

Our target of the sunny Sunday was Noosa, the ritzy second home of Queenslanders complete with nice cafes, restaurants, boutiques and ridiculously long (Tens of km) sand beaches:

First lesson about Australian cafés you get is the presence of something odd on the menu - flat white. When putting that on the coffee spectrum, it appears to be exactly the same as a cafe latte - just served in a mug or cup (whereas the latte is served in a glass). The Australian staple choice is the flat white, with the latte often being the higher priced item. Classic tourist scamology 101.

The main attraction being the beaches, we took the time during the afternoon to hike along one of the beach trails. Apparently there were some secret beaches along the way, which got us excited - obviously. The whole trail took us around the Noosa Heads, totalling 5-7 km.

Down the path was a secret passageway to take us to a hidden beach:

Sounds of the waves, interesting rocks, clear water, turtles and Manta Rays

Hell's gate - a huge gorge at the end of Noosa heads, with spectacular views to the crashing blue and white waves

White sand and sediment rock beaches, rock formations and weird, dry mushroom-like trees. 

After a hot day of walking and spotting wildlife, we retreated to enjoy a dinner and dessert on the Noosa main strip. Surfer joints serve large portions - just as a tip, always check the portion sizes. A 20 dollar meal can easily feed two people in some joints. 

And to get the proper ending to the day, we queued up to get ourselves a pack of Italian Ice Cream. Possibly the best place in Noosa for that is the legendary Massimo's - just sample a take away box of hazelnut, coffee and passionfruit to enjoy on the beach at sunset - guaranteed not to disappoint!

Land Down Under

Arrived to Gold Coast and on the way to Brisbane. Unfortunately, our pickup was scheduled for the evening, so we had to figure out how to spend a working day in OOL airport, or to travel closer down to Brisbane. After a quick breakfast with huge stack of pancakes, strawberries and ice cream we jumped on the bus to Harbortown - a shopping centre somewhere between Gold Coast and Brisbane.

Carrying a lot of luggage around for the day wasn't really particularly exciting, but we managed to find a storage room (free) to do some window shopping. Overall, Harbortown isn't really anything particularly exciting, considering DFO has usually much better deals. But then again, this was mostly a pitstop on the way. One notable success was the first encounter with the local Starbucks replacement "Zaraffas" - ice coffees and frappucinos.

Cowabunga!

Getting to Brisbane, or the Gap suburb, was a quick ride. On top of a place to stay, we got an introduction to a wholly new set of dietary principles while the stay - no gluten (flour, rice, wheat... the usual stuff), no sugar, and huge loads of meat.

As swimming and watersports (oh behave) were still out of question, the first things we did were some exploring around the surrounding areas - by foot and by car. We got known to koalas, kangaroos and other natives in Lone Pine Sanctuary.

Weird birds, Koalas and Cockatoos

Tawny Frogmouths

Bats and Pythons

White-bellied sea eagles

Girls from Finland, Tasmanian Devils and White Dingos

Koala families and Emus

And a whole lot of kangaroos and wallabies in all different sizes: