Another Trip Down Under

It was a trip made on impulse. While travelling to work one Friday morning, I read from TODAY papers that AUD was going down. I smsed Clem.

Me: Aussie $ going down. Wanna consider aus for hols? Must book fast.
He: Sounds gd. Whr 2?
Me: Tasmania?
He: I was thinking more of cairns or goldcoast.

Later, I checked SQ for tickets. With the incidents (four in two mos!) facing Qantas, no way were we flying them. There were promos for Brisbane.

Our trip was sealed. In three weeks' time, we were going for hols.

In a turn of events, my mom passed away two weeks later. I wanted to cancel my trip but my dad asked us to carry on. I couldn't bear to leave him behind so I asked if he wanted to join us. At least the trip would take his mind (and ours) off the loss. He was agreeable. That said, I couldn't leave my bro behind as well so I asked my bro if he could take leave. All happening in a day, my bro got his leave approved, booked the tickets (on the same flight, Praise God!) and we were set to go in a weeks' time.

After the funeral, I quickly changed our apartment hotel to a 2-bedroom and Clem also quickly upgraded our car to a Terago. I realised that my passport did not have a validity of six months so I had to apply for one. I got the passport the day before departure and had to quickly apply for visa. Thank God everything went smoothly.

As we touched down at Brisbane International, Clem exclaimed, "Oh no!" "What?!" I asked, my heart missing three beats. "I forgot my driving license!" I sighed with partial relief. Partial because my bro could drive but I wasn't sure how confident he would be. Well, at least we thanked God he was here.

2-Bedroom Apartment at Central Summit, Springhill
We were pleasantly surprised at our apartment. It was very spacious. With a big living room and a fully furnished kitchen, it also came with a utility area with washing area, a washing machine and a dryer. I booked through the internet at $1263 for 6 nights. When I checked in, they gave me a cheaper price. $774 in total! I couldn't believe my eyes!

Ok, enough photos of the apartment. I'm beginning to appear like an estate agent.

Food
With the Aus restrictions, we weren't allowed to bring foodstuff in. All we had was one tin of Verity's milk powder. We decided that we would cook some meals and eat out for others. Woolworth supermarket became our fav haunt. As other civilisations close at 5pm, Woolworth closes at 9pm.

We would usually make breakfast, cook lunch and pack. And cook dinner, since there wasn't much night activities. Although we packed our lunches, sometimes we would also buy other stuff to go with our lunch. We saved a lot through that. Ingredients were really fresh and cheap! Breakfast included french toast, chicken porridge, ham & egg croissant, hamburg sandwich and sausages. Packed lunch included fried noodles, fried rice, sandwiches. Dinner was more sumptous, usually rice, soup, stew, a meat and a veg.

On the last day, we chanced upon a Vietnamese shop. We had beef noodles, pork chop rice and chicken rice noodles!

For the kids, I cooked porridge, macaroni and spaghetti. Having a food flask was really handy. the food remained hot for lunch and dinner (in case we were out till quite late). Other than these, Verity would demand to eat our french fries, fish, chicken and any kind of food from outside. We had to feed her first before she saw our food, cos she'd reject hers and wanted ours.

We didn't bring Cavan's milk as we thought he could jolly well drink fresh milk here. Alas, he wasn't used to drinking fresh milk hence he got diarrhoea the first day. We were at the supermarket and he kept hurrying us to go back cos he wanted to ng ng. We told him to go to a public toilet but he refused. He was partially poo-trained but still insisted on putting on a diaper. Finally we got back and he was on a diaper.

A short while later, he needed a diaper again. This time round, he really couldn't wait and Clem took the opportunity and plonked him on the toilet bowl! It worked. Poo went down the toilet bowl. For the rest of the trip, he pooed on toilet bowls, not diapers anymore! Even public toilets! Yippee!

For the rest of the trip, he drank Verity's infant formula.

Transport
This was our Terago. Together with one baby seat, one booster and a GPS, it cost us $445 for one week. Yep, cheap. And cheap fuel prices too. But parking charges, hell no.

At one location (city area), it cost us $24 for two hours. Generally parking cost $6-$12 per hour, depending on where. At certain places where you slot coins by the roadside, they were cheaper.

Now, having a GPS was really useful. It helped us to navigate, given that our two men in the front seats were, ahem, not very good with directions. Well, the GPS guaranteed that we would get to our destination, not necessarily the shortest route, as we soon found out. But the computerised female voice in that contraption became our best friend.

While travelling from place to place, I had to appease the youngest passenger. Before the car even turned out of the carpark, she already demanded to "up!" I threw in toys, books, titbits, cameras. For her to sleep, she needed to smell my clothes. For Cavan to sleep, he wanted to lie on my shoulder. I was stretched between them two so I stayed sprawled throughout the journey while they slept.

Because of this, we tried not to travel more than two hours per trip. That was why we didn't manage to go to Gold Coast and Surfer's Paradise.

I was glad to have the trip. My dad was visibly more cheery. However, the trip was too short. As everything closed by 5pm, there was nothing to do, and I felt our nights were wasted. Next time, Aussie hols need more than a week!

I was really glad to have invited my dad and bro for the trip. My dad's impression was that Australia was a nice place to stay: slow pace, cheap and fresh groceries, seemingly more affordable housing and transport, and best of all, very polite people including drivers!

We also enjoyed my bro's company. He was really fun to travel with. Even he is extremely introvert, he was very enthu and pored through the brochures to plan and discuss where to go. He was very easy going and went along with us whatever we suggested. Most of all, he was our only driver without complaints and kept his attention and concentration on the road while we went "ooh" and "aah" at the scenery.

Would love to travel with them again!

For more photos, go here.