The Israels Australian Adventure

In the last three weeks we have been going out and about on days when the weather was nice.  On the  Fridays we have gone and played bridge at Brisbane Bridge Club and have got quite used to having to bid by writing the bid down, not to mention everyone else playing Standard American rather than Acol.  They are lucky enough to have their own building which they lease from the council.  It used to be a bowls club. Friday, 19th Jan After bridge we decided to head slightly south and visit the three water towers that were closest to Ipswich - a 3 hour driving trip.  Bridge went well, we came 2nd top East/West - I was away with the fairies on a couple of hands - can't even blame David!  We had a lovely lunch at a Greek cafe (Adonis) I had found around the corner from the bridge club  They had a wonderful tiled mosaic on the wall - it was beautiful and the food wasn't bad either. Our first water tower was on the Mt Lindsay Highway in Park Ridge so we knew ac...

On Monday, 5th Feb we took our chance to drive down to Springbrook and see the last 3 water towers we hadn't yet visited (that we could sensibly get to).   It was a 6 hour marathon roundtrip but well worth it - we had a lovely day. Springbrook We knew it would be a beautiful drive as it was an hour further on than Tamborine and in the middle of the Gold Coast Hinterland.  Sadly the spectacular waterfalls were all a good hike away from the car parks so we knew we wouldn't be able to see any of them but we were after the water tower and the "best of all lookouts".  With a name like that you just had to go.  We also weren't staying overnight to see the glow worms at Natural Bridge - I bet that is an awesome sight too.   The first lookout we came to was Hardy's Lookout.  You had to park further up the road and then walk back along the single track.  You could just make out the Gold Coast in the distance with the tall buildings in Broadbeach stand...

You can tell we are waning a little by the infrequent posts😊  Most of that is due to the freaky weather Qld is having at the moment.  Rain here soaks you to the skin if you get caught in it so we have had to be careful with our activities and choose days when no rain was expected.  This has been tricky as their wet humid season has started a month early.  Temperatures are still in the high 30s with Brassall often up to 35+ so trips to the coast cools everything down. Nat went back to school on the 22nd but before she did we had a lovely day on the coast at Redcliffe - the only really sunny day all week.   Redcliffe What a lovely place Redcliffe is.  It is mentioned quite a bit in a book I have been reading  by an Australian author Trent Dalton "Boy Swallows Universe" which has just been made into a Netflix series.  It was quite cool as I knew loads of the places mentioned in the book as it is set in Brisbane/Ipswich. The most famous resident...