Brisbane Free Days and Halloween on Stradbroke Island

Leaving Heron Island, we boarded a bus and drove 6 hours to Brisbane.  Civilization!!! It was so weird to be in a place with big building and so many more people.  We could go to the grocery store, walk around for more than a mile in a circle, and actually feel clean for once (clean laundry!!!).  Heron Island was amazing, but it was really nice to be back in Brisbane.  We only really had a day and a half free, but we had one big goal we wanted to accomplish - halloween costumes.  Halloween (along with Thanksgiving) really isn't celebrated down under, but we definitely weren't gonna let that stop us.  For Halloween, we decided to create a costume with an Australian theme…

In order to understand our costume, I need to give you a little background information (including a couple pictures from the storybook).

 

 

 While in the outback, our professor introduced us to a famous Australia children's book, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs. 

This book was all about "gum nut babies".  They are tiny (and cute) little babies that make their hats out of eucalyptus seed cases and are scared of big bad banksia men.


A group of 9 of us decided that we would be the gumnut babies and set off in search of costumes in Brisbane.  Obviously there are no costume stores, but we made use of a variety of christmas decorations, creating skirts our of tinksel, then using these organic soilish pots for hats!  We ended up safety pinning headbands to our hats so they would stay on our head.  I'd say a pretty cheap and creative costume!  :)  

Here is all but one of the gumnut babes

 Lisa, Jocelyn, Me, KL, Ryan, Coop, Liz, and Elaina (were missing Helen :( ) 

Gumnut babies always have cute names, and mine was "Bugga Boo"

Bugga Boo and Crackle Pot 

New Zealand Crew - Liz was Snuggle Boo (we had fun coming up with names!) 

There really isn't much nightlife on Stradebroke Island, but Ron took us to this little bar (i guess) called the Little Ships Club.  There was a group of 20-30 people older than 40, and we spend Halloween dancing the night away to some good old music (Grease and the maracena definitely made an appearance). 

Overall, we all had a great time, and by the end of the night, they annouced our group were all "club member" and that Little Ship was our "home club."  They even gave me a (really nice) Little Ship polo shirt and made me give a little speech.  Another girl in our group also got a little book about the history about the Little Ship Club!

Here's a picture of all the gumnut babies and "a man with a handlebar mustache" aka Will,

and a picture with our prof Ron Johnstone.











 


We all bought a lot of candy to share, and even brought it with us to do "candy toasts" :)

My favorite candy on this trip so far has been hokey pokies.  We had them for the first time in New Zealand, and they are sooo good!  Its pretty much a square honey malt covered in chocolate.  Amazingness!!! :)

We have a week of classes on Stradebroke Island, then 3 free days before we head to Sydney.