We went to Australia in May 2009!
Anne was already29 weeks pregnant, but we checked with Air Asia and the Australian immigration. As long as the airline lets you on (with a letter from the gynaecologist), Australia will let you in.
Photos, videos and captions below the fold. Captions follow photos.
We left Malaysia on May 1st & arrived at Coolangatta Airport on May 2nd. Jeffrey pakpak (Scott’s dad’s older brother) who drives the AirAsia bus came to fetch us.
After dropping off our luggage at Jeffrey pak pak’s house, we went over to a nearby shopping complex to have breakfast. We went happened to bump into one of Jeffrey pakpak’s friends from Singapore and he joined us for brekkie. Scott had roast beef & Anne had scrambled eggs, sausage & bacon. The food was very yummy! The hot chocolate was better than any hot chocolate Anne has ever had in Malaysia.
We had a photo taken with the car that we would be using so that we would not forget which car we were driving. Jeffrey pakpak’s car is a huge Mercedes 4WD with GPS. (We really relied tons on the GPS while driving alone in Ozzie!)
Jeffrey pakpak’s house & bus. Like most Aussies, he had the house custom built from scratch, not like Malaysia where most houses are designed by the contractors. It’s a really nice place, with an all-wood upper floor.
We drove to Mount Tambourine & enjoyed the fresh air, scenery & slow pace of life. It’s kinda like what Cameron Highlands is to Malaysians.
Lots of yummy treats around!
And a lady who posed for a photo with the family dog out for a walk.
We found a German cuckoo clock shop. The clocks were carved by very skilled craftsmen.
There were music boxes too – actually, just the mechanism inside music boxes. You turn the handle to rotate the metal drum (cylinder), which has raised dots that push metal planks 0f different lengths to play a tune. We bought one with the tune of “My Favourite Things” from The Sound of Music.
Anne enjoying her Shepherd’s pie. The food was sooooooo good!
Scott loved his lemon meringue muffin… Not quite a pie, but still, so hard to find in Malaysia!
Yummyness video:
We found these mats & aprons amusing.
We bought 3 different fudges too. The lady at the counter warned Scott that one particular fudge he chose has alcohol in it. To which Scott replied, “YEAH!” They were really sweet.
Lots of different cheeses at the cheese factory. We couldn’t get any because they don’t last when not refrigerated.
What is a sports car doing in a cheese factory?
Lorikeets. Scott captured these while we waited for our glow worm cave tour at the Cedar Creek Winery. The owners gave us free tea & coffee because they were sorry we had to wait about 30 minutes for the next tour. Talk about service!
While waiting, we tasted their wines, as well as walked around the area & found out that the owner used to shoot ducks but has been pardoned since 2006 due to his rearing of ducks. See the duck pond above.
Just outside the glow worm cave. This is a man-made cave where glow worms are reared. It was built to conserve the real glow worm caves which were fast being destroyed by too many tourists visiting them. Meaning, the ‘tree’ behind us is totally fake. The glow worms were kind of sparse, though. And no photos allowed.
After our glow worm tour, we checked into Courtyard Marriott. It was really fancy, graciously paid for by Jeffrey pakpak. It is a beautiful hotel right in the centre of Surfer’s Paradise. We could view the city life from our balcony.
After washing up, we drove to the Australian Outback Spectacular show. We booked our tickets online, which gave us an AUD20 discount each. We were given cowboy hats & were assigned to the yellow team. Before the real show began, there was a preshow & lots of outback Aussie deco to look at.
We were served a 3 course meal, starting with a plate of Mixed Bushman’s Queensland salad served with tangy mango dressing. Followed by a Bonza BBQ eye fillet steak, with rich gravy, seasoned with Kakadu plum sauce and served with garden vegetables & damper (the Bushman’s bread). Dessert was traditional baked Pavlova with a Queensland berry sauce & country cream. It was the best meal Anne had during our trip, and Scott thought the Pavlova was like ‘better-than-meringue’ meringue. Beer, wine & lemonade were free flow during the show. Billy tea was served at the end.
Here are scans of the booklet of the show (cost AUS 10)”
A boab tree outside the Australian Outback Spectacular arena.
Surfer’s Paradise doesn’t sleep at night. They were still partying a bit even at 4 am or so.
Gold Coast at 6am. We woke up just for the sunrise, and our room was on the top floor! Our room balcony didn’t face directly east, but it stuck out enough to look around the corner to see the sunrise.
Gold Coast sunrise. A long video of the slow sunrise is below too.
The 5 minute long sunrise video:
After that, we walked the Surfer’s Paradise’s beach.
The wind was really strong! You can see it and hear it in the videos below.
See the amazing sky.
And decorated beach.
We got naughty & visited this shop. =)
As we left though, a family with little kids stopped by too…
Then we drove to Brisbane. A few wrong turns brought us to this road to see the Story Bridge upfront, something we didn’t plan.
We walked around a Sunday market while waiting for Moses & Su at the Eagle Street Pier. Moses & Su are a couple whom we knew from Johor Bahru Baptist Church, and had migrated to Australia the year before.
Two different bands playing, a modern funky one on shore and an old fashioned jazz one on the riverboat:
Moses & Su were our tour guides around Brisbane city. We walked past churches, unique buildings & sculptures.
The Aussies just celebrated Anzac Day & flowers were still at the memorial. You can’t see it, but the shorter pillar in the middle was lit with a flame.
Sporty police car.
An old church in the midst of modern buildings.
At the art gallery. Little post it notes combined together like a quilt. Scott had lots of sarcastic remarks about modern art in this gallery.
A huge pipe organ at the city hall. Yes, it’s really a working pipe organ and not just a wall deco!
Huge lumberjack tools.
A balloon sculptor.
Lunch at a high class hawker centre.
Scott trying to roll a metal ball. They wouldn’t budge, as they are fixed to the ground at the bottom. But they can still spin on the spot. See the video below.
Creative advertising.
We visited the Queensland Museum.
Moses & Supiya. Moses grew up in Sabah & studied in the US where he met Thai girl, Su. They got married, but eventually moved to Aussie due to problems with Malaysia’s immigration authorities. It’s really Malaysia’s loss.
At the art gallery. Scott demonstrates life imitating art. “This is art? The ‘put finger down throat to puke’ symbolism is so fitting.”
The Brisbane flyer. Scott felt that Brisbane was so much like Singapore… From the city design to the artsy things scattered around the streets to even the pedestrian crossing lights. He thinks he remembers Lee Kuan Yew writing in The Singapore Story (LKY’s memoirs) about sending Singaporean city planners to Brisbane to get inspiration.
Taken while on the City Cat ferry. See below for videos of the ride on the river. Notice anything unusual in the middle of each video?
Cool way to book a taxi.
That night, we had dinner at Grace ee ee’s place (Grace ee ee is Anne’s mum’s cousin). We had aromatic cushcush (wheat made into small grains like rice), barbequed prawns & chicken. All very yummy. We also showed off our 1 year old wedding photos. Notice the African giraffes in this photo? Uncle David just came back from Africa. He was there on a Gideon’s project.
It was extremely cold on Mount Coot-tha.
Thank God for this outdoor heater for the restaurant patrons. It’s a metal grille with real fire blasting out of it! See the video below.
This was at where we parked our car. We were horrified to find out the weekday parking rate. We parked on a Sunday. So it was AUD10 flat.
That night, we stayed at Grace ee ee’s house & drove to Steve Irwin’s place the next morning. (No, not heaven… It’s the zoo he founded, Australia Zoo.)
Lots of reptiles. Some were just running about, like in the video below:
Crocodile wrangling. Actually, more like taunting or disturbing – the handlers hit the water with a bucket to get its attention. Somewhat interesting, but the croc was less than cooperative in putting on a good show. See the video:
Anne was not impressed by the fake Eucalyptus trees.
A cassowary. Fresh cut fruits were in its bowl.
Tasmanian devil and its enclosure. Looks quite innocent here!
This one rested with the mouth open.
What is the orthodontist’s diagnosis? 
Oooo…giant turtles!
Komodo dragon.
Super cute otters! See them play in the video:
And listen to a kid mistake Scott for someone else in this one:
Scott was very excited over these kookaburras. He was hoping to catch one on video or at least see one call throughout the Australia trip, and was very blessed to catch the following trio:
It seems that just as we arrived at that area, a wild kookaburra had flown overhead, causing the local ones to challenge the intruder and sing a victory song when he left.
Farm animal petting zoo. No cats for Scott.
The kids loved his place; this lady handler gets a ‘kiss’ from a piglet near the end of this video:
See how far a kangaroo can leap.
Most of the kangaroos were sedate. Probably eat too much and exercise too little. Scott says it feels more like dog fur, and they twitch their ears like a cat does when you disturb their ear:
Birds in their enclosures. Not that the white one can’t fly away, but we think the zoo feeds them to keep them coming back.
Don’t like your baby? You can exchange him. Just make your way to the baby change room. =)
Ladies and gentlemen… Boys and girls… It’s the Tiger That Does Nothing! Behold as he does… Nothing!
Posing with sleepy koalas. Scott pet one on the lower back like the handler said, it felt like a soft teddy bear.
Sleepy stoned lazy thing:
Rolling around like a lazy cat.
Eeyer… He pooped.
Python’s vertebrae, with a piglet skeleton for comparison.
Real-life size of one of the biggest crocodiles rumoured to have been seen.
We also visited the Buderim Ginger factory. We missed the factory tour but got ourselves tickets for the train ride.
The only food left was ice-cream. We had this for lunch. Yummy. Almost all the flavors had ginger in them, and this is ginger-cinnamon. Sooooo good!
Anyone wants to try Aussie croc eggs? Heheh. We were tempted to get a box from the “Macadamia factory”. Hint hint.
After that, we returned to Jeffrey pakpak’s house. There was a traffic jam from Sunshine Coast to Brisbane. We missed seeing NgeeHing pakpak (Scott’s dad’s even oldest brother) but we managed to have dinner with Jeffrey pakpak and his wife Jenny leongleong.
Our final shot in Australia. We left at about 8.30am on May 5th.
Bye Oz! We’ll miss you.
Tags: aussie, australia, australia outback adventure, australia zoo, brisbane, gold coast, mount coot-tha, mount currumbin, oz, ozzie
