Date: December 15, 2018 – December 31, 2018
Location: Brisbane, Australia

Immediately after arriving in Australia, Brian had to master driving on the wrong (i.e. left) side of the road. The biggest struggle is that the entire console and controls are mirrored from the US. Thus, the turn signal is on the right of the steering column and the windshield wipers on the left.

After two weeks in, he has (mostly) stopped signaling when trying to clear the windshield, and has stopped turning on the windshield wipers when turning.

After spending the first night in a hotel close to the Brisbane airport we drove up to Redcliffe on the coast.

We had lunch in the town looking at the ocean.

Redcliffe has Bee Gees Way, a walkway that honors the Bee Gees who grew up in Redcliffe.

Housesit Overview

When people with pets decide to go on vacation, they need to make arrangements for how their pet(s) and home will be cared for while they are gone. A kennel can be costly and stressful for pets, and worrying about whether anything in your house is going wrong while you are away is an added burden that can take away from your time off.

If friends or family are not available to care for the house and pets, or you don’t want to pay someone to stop by at regular intervals, this is where house sitting comes in. The pets remain in their home environment, and in exchange for watching pets, taking in the daily mail, watering plants, and other chores, the traveling house sitters can get free housing. It’s a win-win for both the travelers and the home owners!

We are members of two house sitting websites, Nomador and TrustedHousitters, where ads looking for house-sitters are posted.  If you would like to join TrustedHousitters to post an ad for someone to watch your house, or to look for house-sitting opportunities, you can you this referral link to get 20% off a membership.

We were fortunate to see a house sitting ad, and be chosen, to take care of a cat near Brisbane during dates that worked with our schedule.

Our Mitchelton Housesit with Bibi

Jasmyn and Rick kindly welcomed us into their home. They provided clear and detailed instructions to care for the plants, home and their adorable cat, Bibi, while they were away.

In addition to what we saw in Brisbane for Christmas we made some other day trips around the area.

Glass House Mountains

The Glass House Mountains are a group of 13 hills located north of Brisbane.

We drove north to the lookout. The hill on the left is Mount Tibrogargan with a height of 1,194 feet, pictured below.

After seeing the view we did a hike – or “bush-walking” as the Aussie’s say. We went around the Tibrogargan circuit trail.

The path was clear and there were some views along the way as well.

We were mostly done with the short 3km loop when I went around a bend in the trail and saw this.

It may not look it from the picture, but it was big! The body was around 2.5 – 3 feet long and then the tail was just as long, putting the overall length at more than 6 feet. After I turned back to Brian and he saw what was in the trail he told me to take pictures and he was on his phone trying to look up how dangerous it was. We didn’t go any closer to it and after a short time it slowing walked up the trail.

It looked back at us a couple times. After it went around the bend I told Brian we could turn around, but he knew that we were almost done the loop, so after a few minutes we continued and kept out eyes out for it. We never saw it again.

We searched online for what it was and originally thought it was a Lace Monitor. After going to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, however, we are relatively confident that it was a Perentie. The Perentie is the largest monitor in Australia.

We have seen numerous monitors, water dragons, and other lizards since, but none of them have come close to the size of the one we saw.

After the hike we continued driving north through the Sunshine Coast.

We went to Laguna Lookout in Noosa National Park before we headed back south to Bibi.

Another day, we drove south to see the country side and made a loop between Mount Barney National Park and Mount Lindesay. We then drove through Border Ranges National Park.

We took Lions road, which crosses Running Creek many times. A couple of the bridges were one lane made out of wooden planks.

On our way back to Bibi we stopped at Kooroomba Vineyards and Lavender Farm.

We did a wine tasting and purchased a bottle of port wine.

Tamborine Mountain

Our next day trip took us to the town of Tamborine Mountain. We first went to the Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk.

There was a lot of information about the animals in the area at the start, but we didn’t see any. There were a good number of people there and as we were leaving a tour bus showed up, so I can’t believe animals are usually around. The walk wasn’t all that interesting so I don’t recommend going (especially compared to our bush-walk adventure).

After the Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk we went to the Glow Worm Caves. The ticket to the glow worm cave tour also includes access to Frog Hollow where we saw some native frogs.

Brian and I had never seen glow worms before. After entering the man-made cave we watched a short video about glow worms.  Our eyes adjusted to the dark and then we entered the cave.

There were little glowing dots from the worms all over the sides and top of the cave. It was really cool to see the sticky, beaded threads that the glow worms make to catch food. Because light would disrupt the glow worms, no pictures could be taken.

If you have seen glow worms before, you may not find this as interesting, as the cave is man made.

In the same location as the Glow Worm Caves is a small lake, restaurant and Cedar Creek Estate Vineyard & Winery. By the lake we saw a lizard (called a water dragon) that Brian got close to take a picture.

The area also has a few brush-turkeys. As soon as we sat at a picnic table with food one came running over to us.

Before we departed we did a wine tasting. A lot of tour buses stop for the Glow Worm Caves and wine tasting so it can get busy. We found the wine decent.

We then went to Witches Falls Winery. The wine here was really good! We especially liked the Prophecy line that is only made when the grapes are considered exceptional. If you are in the area I highly recommend visiting this winery.

Before leaving Tamborine Mountain we went to Tamborine Mountain Distillery.

The distillery has many flavors of liqueurs, vodkas and schnapps. We tasted a few.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

The next day trip we did was to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

It is the largest koala sanctuary with over 130 koalas.

There is an option to get photos holding a koala, but on the day we were there it was very busy and the line was very long so we didn’t wait.

There are many different areas with koalas so it wasn’t hard to see them.

Most of the koalas were sleeping but we did see a few awake and saw them walk.

In addition to koalas, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary has many other animals as well including platypus, wombats, dingos and birds.

This is a martens’ water monitor.

A lace monitor, at around 3 feet long head to tail, was much smaller than the monitor we saw on the Tibrogargan circuit trail.

A southern cassowary. The third largest flightless bird.

A tawny frogmouth. It is not an owl but part of the Nightjar bird family.

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary has a free range area where you can walk around with emus, kangaroos and wallabies.

There are also several animal shows. We went to the Free Flight Raptor Show, where we saw a white-bellied sea eagle.

We also saw a barn owl and a barking owl, not pictured. They both flew over the crowd super close to our heads.

This is a wedge-tailed eagle. It is Australia’s largest bird of prey.

Here you can see it swallowing a rat.

After the raptor show we went to the Sheep Dog Show. Kelpies were used in the show that day as it was too hot for the border collie.

We saw the dogs individually herd the sheep through some gates and the last task was getting them into the pen.

We enjoyed the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Tickets are much cheaper than the Australia Zoo and we were mainly interested in seeing koalas.

With another few days still remaining in our first house outside of Brisbane, be sure to stay tuned for our next post where we cover New Year’s Even down under!