Nana and Pops had young Angel, our grand daughter visit, for a few days of the school holidays/Easter break. She flew unaccompanied from Perth to Brisbane airport. A pretty bold undertaking, in my opinion for one so young.
Touchdown at Brisbane Airport
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| I was relieved to meet her on time, having braved Highway traffic and airport construction conditions. |
We planned a few places on her visit over East. The Bird Park at Maleny was top of the list. An early start had us driving up the Blackall range, the very steep ascent had Angel, a little anxiously sitting up and looking back at the immense view. It was a lovely clear morning and good to know we didn’t meet another vehicle on the steep winding road up.
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| Outside the main aviary in front of some prehistoric bird … apparently one of Angel’s favourite creatures |
Angel was wary of the large birds inside the aviary, but happy enough to interact with the smaller varieties
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| Whispering sweet nothings! |
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| What do you reckon? |
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| Ohhhhh! |
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| The BIG chair |
Guinea pigs and rabbits were more to Angel’s fancy
Our spectacular view where we lunched. The gardens were a sight to behold (in my opinion) with mass plantings of palms, natives, Azaleas, Salvias, waterfalls trickling away, and ponds abounding with goldfish, bush turkeys and Guinea fowl running underfoot - a lovely place to be.
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| Very famous background |
Some of the very colourful bird life
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| A beautifully coloured pheasant |
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| Lovebirds?? |
Following the Bird Park, down the Range (on a better road) at Landsborough we found the Big Kart track.
Here Angel was able to pretend to be Oscar Piastri. Fortunately the track only had light traffic and at one stage for about 5 minutes, she had the track to herself.
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| Kitting up - usual safety features… balaclava, helmet, covered shoes |
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| Out of the blocks, or the grid …. Whatever the start! |
For some unknown technical reason, I can’t load all the videos I took of Angel’s many track circuits.
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| A break in between driving sessions |
Our last day for the fun things, a trip to Australia Zoo. Pops wasn’t able to traipse around the large area so a good friend of the family, Alana, came instead. Coincidentally she lived just up the road and around the corner so we stayed at her place overnight.
We saw most of the Australian animal exhibits - dingoes, wombats, Tassie Devils, kangaroos, koalas, emus …. There were huge crowds visiting at the same time. The place was packed, kids bawling, queues! Anyhow the gardens were immaculately presented so just being there was lovely.
Angel had a penchant for the African/Asian animals so we spent more time perusing them.
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| Angel and Alana |
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| Giraffes feeding |
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| Happy Mum greeting Angel at Perth airport. |
Finally back home in Perth. A short but sweet visit.
Ou of 
