Bart Bear's Blog

Our Gold Coast trip was really short and we didn't have much free time between meeting up with relatives, so the only "free time" was a lunch cruise along some of the many canals that thread through the GC. The islands in the canals contain some of the most expensive properties in Australia, you can find images of some of them on posts of our earlier visits. The most noticeable thing since our last trip is the increasing number of really high buildings. Lunch cruises with Mum are fun. She gets excited by the buildings and really hyper when prawns are on the menu. Mum tells me that the best prawns in the world are fresh Gold Coast king prawns and she should know as she has eaten lots of prawns (shrimps to our friends in the USA) in countries around the world. Of course, I have to take her word for it because I can't eat anything at all and Dad is allergic to all shellfish. On our flight back to Canberra we flew close to Lake George and it is now almost completely full.

Labels: Gold Coast

At long last, COVID restrictions have been eased, state borders are open and airlines are almost back in full business. The first trip that we just had to make was a quick one up to the Gold Coast to meet family that we hadn't been able to see for over 6 years. My second-oldest brother, Tim (with his family), was on a posting to Ireland when overseas flights paused and when they finally were able to return home to Queensland their borders were closed to the rest of Australia. So it was great to see them again. The Gold Coast has grown a lot since we were last there, I will post some images soon. And guess what? This afternoon I heard the Oldies talking to a Virgin lady about a longer holiday soon. It is fantastic to get back into traveling, this small bear has a lot of the country (and hopefully the world) yet to see.

Labels: aircraft, family, Gold Coast

The Gold Coast beaches stretch for 30 Km, from Tweed Heads in New South Wales to Southport in Queensland. Only a few headlands and creeks break the strip. Surfers Paradise is the best known of the beaches, but in my opinion it is not actually the "best" as the surfing is better at others. I have been on most of the beaches, but Mum won't let me in the water so I have to be content with playing in the sand and terrorizing (small) crabs. Here are pictures of the beaches at the ends of the strip. The first one is at Coolangatta at the southern end of the Gold Coast. This is a good surf beach and if you look carefully you can see lots of surfers waiting for the best wave. The breakwaters protect the mouth of the Tweed River. Just south of the river you can see a jetty carrying a long pipe out beyond the breakers. This is a sand pumping station and it serves two purposes. One is to stop sand from clogging the river mouth, the other is to pump sand north onto the Gold Coast beaches. The natural drift of sand is northwards so this station makes sure that the beaches have new sand replacing the stuff that drifts away. The second picture is on the Spit at Southport, the northern end of the strip. You can see the high-rise buildings in the background and some of the hundreds of yachts that anchor here. I think it is great that right in the middle of one of the most "developed" areas of Queensland you can find a quiet area of beach like this for small bears to explore. There are proposals to turn the Spit into a cruise ship terminal, shopping malls and casino. Personally, much as I like cruising, I would be sorry to see this small patch of beach and native vegetation go under concrete and tar.

Labels: beach, Gold Coast, Queensland

Canberra winters are so cold and bleak that some sort of escapes are necessary. Last week the Oldies and I escaped to the Gold Coast. We stayed at our favourite resort, Pacific Views. You can see how well the name fits by the picture taken from our 18th floor balcony. Those things that look like smudges on the beach and over the waves are actually kite surfers (click on the photo and you will see them better). I sat on the balcony and watched kite surfers and board surfers every day. I didn't see any body surfers, I guess the water was too cold for them. Dad didn't go in, so it must have been really cold. All along the Gold Coast beaches there are lookout towers for Lifesavers (these days they are being called Lifeguards because American television is eroding our good old Aussie names). From them you can see if anybody gets into trouble in the surf and start rescue proceedings. They are manned by volunteers and, as you can see if you look closely at the clicked photo, sometimes by small bears. Nobody got into difficulties while I was on watch. The main street in the suburb we stayed in, Main Beach, is called Tedder Avenue. Some people insist on calling small bears like me "Tedda Bears" so I got the Oldies to take the other photo just for them :-) Find the bear in the photo. Yes, it was warm and sunny and we are now back in cold Canberra.

Labels: beach, Gold Coast, Queensland

If only Scruffy and I were bigger, we could have had great fun with this car. We found it during our last trip to the Gold Coast. There was a "Fashion, Food & Fast Cars" day on the avenue where we went for lunch. One of the cars was this little beauty. I am not sure just what sort of car it is, other than a race car. It is too small for F.1 and looks a bit different to an Indycar, but it sure looks fast. The owner was happy to let the Oldies look all over it, so naturally Scruff and I did too. There must be a standard size for drivers of these cars, Dad is too big around the middle to fit into the cockpit, and Scruff and I are too small to see out when we sit in there. If we tried to ride where we are sitting in the photo, we would be sucked into the big intake just above our heads. That leaves Mum, and at least she is speedway trained, so maybe she would be the best one of us to take the car for a run. The owner wasn't going to let any of us drive it anyway, but I would love to go for a run in a car like this. I will post more pix of some of the cars that lined Tedder Avenue that day, later on.

Labels: cars and trucks, Gold Coast, Queensland

This is where we stayed during our week at the Gold Coast. It is called "Pacific Views", and that is just what it gives you. The beach is just across the road and from the balconies you can see almost all of the northern Gold Coast beaches. We stayed on the 16th floor and if you have sharp eyes you can see Mum and I waving to Dad who was down on the street, taking the photos. It might look like Mum is ready to drop me over the rail, but she was holding me really tight and telling me to stop wriggling. Scruffy, Milkshake, Blu and I spent lots of time sitting out on the balcony watching boats and surfers. That high up we didn't have to worry about kookaburras, crows or crabs. One morning, just after we woke up, we heard on the news that a baby Humpback whale had beached itself just a kilometre or so down the beach from us. We watched from the balcony as lifesavers, marine rangers and lots of people tried to keep the poor little critter cool, and dig a trench back into the sea so he would float off at the next high tide. He did get back into the ocean that night, but went the wrong way and couldn't find his mum, so he died and was washed ashore miles up the coast. We all felt really sorry for him. That was the only sad part of our stay. The rest of the time it was warm and sunny, but not warm enough to tempt Dad into the surf.

Labels: beach, boats, Gold Coast, Queensland

Well, we are back in Canberra after a fortnight on the road. We drove over 2,500 kilometres - up to the Gold Coast in Queensland and back. Along the way we stopped at a few nice places for 2 or 3 days. The first stop was at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast. Port Macquarie was founded in1821 as a convict settlement and its early history was very brutal. Today it is a top holiday spot and a place lots of people retire to. We stayed in a park cabin right next to the Hastings river. I love cabins like this because you can always see something interesting happening. During the day there are boats and joggers and at sunset you can see keen fishermen trying to catch the fish that come in to feed as it gets dark. The fisherman who used the breakwall in front of our cabin says that dusk is the best time to catch fish and he caught lots of them so he must be either right or very lucky. Scruffy, Milkshake, Blu and I spent lots of time sitting on the veranda rail watching the passing traffic. The only problem for us small critters were the Kookaburras that thought we might be edible, so we weren't allowed to sit on the rail without an Oldie in attendance. When the Oldies went out for dinner and left us in the cabin, they left the curtains open so that we could watch from the safety of inside the cabin. Besides being a pretty place for people, Port Macquarie also has a large population of wild koalas living there, more about them in the next post.

Labels: boats, Gold Coast, New South Wales, north coast, Queensland, trips

We went for a boat ride when we visited the Gold Coast. Mum was excited by all the mansions along the canals. Dad kept pointing out the way that they would slip into the water if their retaining walls gave way (Dad is like that). What I liked was all the different sorts of boats that we saw. There were loads of speedboats, fishing boats, ferries of all sizes, tugboats and some special workboats. In this picture there is a small white ferry and two red dredges. Dredges are boats that slurp up the mud and sand from the bottom of rivers and lakes and spit them out wherever you need it. Lots of the islands in the rivers behind the Gold Coast and the Broadwater have been made or built up with soil these dredges got from the bottom while they were digging the navigation channels deeper. I think it would be fun to drive a dredge. Just imagine the mess you could make.

Labels: boats, Gold Coast, Queensland

Movie World on the Gold Coast has lots of fun rides and interesting things to look at, but this one is a bit of a puzzler. I couldn't work out what it was all about. Some sort of swing maybe? Maybe not because even when I climbed as far up the gate as I could I still couldn't reach the loop that I thought you sat in. Dad explained. I guess that this is one place where you wouldn't like to swing. I still don't know what boots have to do with it.

Labels: climbing, Gold Coast, Queensland

Dad shouldn't have taken us for a helicopter ride when we were on our Great Ocean Road trip because both Mum and I are totally hooked on them. They are a fantastic way to see things that you can't see from the ground and really give you a better idea of what the country you are driving through is like. Here are a couple of pictures from our two flights so far. As you can see, the weather and scenery were very different each time. The pictures on the left are from the wild and rainy day we flew over the Twelve Apostles and the nearby coast. You can see how rough the ocean was and how deserted the countryside is apart from a few houses and cows. The pictures on the right are from our Gold Coast trip. You can see a big difference. Beautiful weather and a landscape full of buildings, canals, lakes and sandbanks. My favourite spot in helicopters is on top of the instrument console. From there you can keep a check on what the pilots are up to and can see everywhere except behind the chopper. Sometimes I clamber around the cabin but Mum always notices and drags me back, even when you would think she is concentrating on filming. Mums really do have eyes everywhere!

To see the photos better, just click on them. And do check out my archives for earlier posts.

Labels: aircraft, Gold Coast, Great Ocean Road, helicopter, Queensland, Victoria

We always stop at lighthouses. Mum has this strange desire to see every one of them in Australia and Dad encourages her so I have to go along and make sure that they don't fall into the water. On our Gold Coast trip there was only one that we hadn't seen before. Actually, it was two; an old one and a new one at Cleveland Point just south of Brisbane. The new one is just a strong light on a couple of tall posts. No character at all so I haven't put a picture of it in my blog. The old one is much better. It is a beaut example of the wooden lighthouse towers that were built in Queensland in the 1800's. This one was built in 1864 and marked the entrance to Raby Bay until the new one took over in 1976.
Lighthouses are OK, but to a small bear the trees nearby are much more interesting. While the oldies were busy taking photos I found one that just begged to be climbed. Strange leaves in clusters that made the perfect hidey-hole for me. It took the oldies a while to find me, but this time they just laughed and took my picture.

Labels: climbing, Gold Coast, lighthouse, Queensland

Bears always get their revenge on cows that toss them. I mentioned that Cav's is a steakhouse. It is actually right next door to Cav's butchery, so recalcitrant cows have no chance. Here I am, menu read, choice made, waiting for the meal to come. Dad has foolishly left me to guard his XXXX while he and Mum go up to choose their steak. He can't understand why the beer level drops so fast and thinks it must be a higher evapouration rate in Queensland. Of course it has nothing to do with a very dry small bear.

Labels: Gold Coast, Queensland

Mum found a great place to eat when we were looking round the Gold Coast. It is called Cav's Steakhouse and is at Labrador. Outside the shop are a couple of cows. They looked really friendly and weren't moving much so I climbed up on one and played rodeo cowboy for a while. I jumped all over its back and hat and was just about to start yodelling when the critter bucked. I ended up sprawled over the top of its hat. Just as well it had a hat or I might have been skewered on a horn, although this cow doesn't have sharp pointy ones. Dad says it was a lucky escape - for his ears. I think he was having a shot at my yodelling.

Labels: climbing, Gold Coast, Queensland

At Movie World I met lots of people from my favourite movies. These two are my favouritest favourites. There they were, just strolling down the street, and I got to meet them personally. The cutie is Wonder Woman. I had only heard of the lady in comics and on TV from years ago. Well, she obviously ages at a different rate to the rest of us. I got a very own personal cuddle from her, so she is now on my list of favourite heroes in number 2 position just after ...... TA DA!! Yippee!! Hot Diggly Dog!! THE FLASH. Flash has been number 1 ever since I snuck bro Trent's DVD set of the complete TV series of Flash's adventures. I would love to be that fast. If I was I could even escape from Mum when I was in strife due to adventures turning into mischief and she was after me. Flash took me for a run around the theme park, but it was so quick that we were back before anybody noticed we had moved. Flash Rules, OK?

Labels: Gold Coast, heroes, Queensland

Yes, helicopters do have wings. Dad says that a helicopter is really a rotary-winged aircraft. The wings are the long thin things that whiz around on top and that you have to be careful of when you are getting in and out so that you don't end up as thinly-sliced bear kebab. Anyhow, here are a couple of photos of what we flew over.
The top photo is over South Stradbroke Island. South Straddie is one of the islands that make the outside of the Broadwater and the southern end of Moreton Bay. It is mostly sand and scrub. Notice how the pilot has given me a really important job. I am the forward lookout and I have to yell if I see other aircraft in the sky or sharks or whales in the water.
The bottom photo shows some of the big buildings of Surfers Paradise. The really big one is called Q1. It is the tallest residential tower in the world at present. I have been almost to the top of it. In fact, the very second picture on my blog was taken out of one of the 78th floor windows; check it out in the November 2006 archive. It is the building where the security guard insisted on putting me through a full-body search before he let me in the building (check the Dec '06 postings for an embarrasing picture). It was great to see it from way up above with no security hassles. Small bears and helicopters are really meant to go together.

Labels: aircraft, Gold Coast, helicopter, Queensland

Gotta love these oldies of mine. They took me on another helicopter ride! This one was in the same sort of chopper that we flew in over Port Campbell National Park, a Robinson Raven. But the country we flew over this time was very different. Instead of the wild, windy, rough cliffs and ocean, this time it was over the high-rises, canals and theme parks of the Gold Coast. And the weather was perfect this time. The pilot was agreeable to having small bears in the cockpit (more on that later). Here we are with the Raven on the floating heliport at Southport, just back from our flight. The yellow things on the oldies' waists are life-jacket pouches. They had to wear them in case the chopper had to land in the water. We didn't, so I still don't know how they work, but there wasn't one my size so maybe it's just as well.

Labels: aircraft, Gold Coast, helicopter, Queensland

One of the places we visited was Movie World. I wanted to go there because some of my favorite movie heroes live there and there are lots of shows and rides. These crazy vehicles were parked behind a fence to keep kids away from them. No problem for small bears, who can always climb over or through the fence. The old Batmobile was a great looking bit of machinery, but I prefer the new one that I saw later in the day. I really like the Batboat. I was able to clamber all over it and even get into the engine spaces when the oldies were distracted (can you see me in the photos?). I was just about to see if the engines would start when the owner turned up. Was he annoyed?!! Oh well, I always thought that Batman had turned into a bit of a grump. Just wait until you see the next heroes I met. One of them is my all-time favourite and another is a real cutie.
Remember that you can see the pictures bigger if you click on them, and do visit the archive to read about my earlier adventures.

Labels: climbing, Gold Coast, heroes, Queensland, trouble

You might have noticed that I have been away for a while and wondered where I was and what was happening. Well, Dad saw this add for a great deal at the Surfers Paradise Marriott and thought a break away from the cold would help Mum's torn tendon heal. We only got back yesterday. So here I am, out on the balcony of the Marriott, looking out over some of the high-rises and canals across to Mt Warning. We did some interesting things during our stay and I will post piccies every time I can get the oldies away from the computer.

Labels: Gold Coast, Queensland

Boats are fascinating things to small bears. You see one, you just have to try it out. This one at Coolangatta was a bit different. Nowhere as comfortable as the ones my friend Captain Cook runs. I managed to climb up to it, then found it a bit small to get into. I managed to balance on it but then couldn't find any way of getting it into water. Mum tells me it was just as well. If I had managed to get it into the ocean it would have sunk like a lump of iron. I guess it figures 'cause that was what it was made from, but then so are big ships and they float. Dad has me studying up on the physics of buoyancy and displacement.

Labels: boats, Captain Cook, Gold Coast, Queensland

One of the things we did on our trip into Queensland this year was to ride the ferry between Tewantin and Noosa. This is a very pretty trip along the Noosa river. You get to see some strange houseboats and the biggest pelican ever built. Mum, Scruffy and I are waiting for the ferry to arrive at Tewantin. Like all mothers, she is keeping a tight grip on Scruff and I so that we don't wander off and fall into the river while we are watching the fish below the wharf.

Labels: cruising, Gold Coast, Queensland