CRUISIN' THE BRISBANE RIVER....

As Chloe was free this afternoon,  we decided to drive in to her place so that she could come out on the river with us.  

It is only a month until Dan and Chloe move into their new home so she was keen to take us for a drive past her new home on our way to Bulimba where we were going to catch the City Cat into Southbank where we planned to go have an ice cream before catching the ferry back home again.

Max loves transport, loves catching trains and buses and so today I thought it would be great to take him for a ride on the river.

I thought that the boat ride from Bulimba to Southbank would take around half an hour maximum but I was so wrong.  It is a good hour on the ferry from Bulimba to Southbank.

We arrived at Bulimba  little after 2.30pm and parked along a side street and then all walked down to the Ferry terminal... 

We had a good ten minutes to wait before the ferry was due, so we took this opportunity to check out other river transport as well as grabbing a few photos of us all.

It wasn't long before we saw the ferry heading our way, so we started making our way down the gang plank.  Max was super excited and pretty much ran the whole way.

Once we were on the Ferry, Max wanted to head to the back of the boat so we headed out there and found a seat right at the back so that he could see the engines churning up the water... He was in seventh heaven....

Enjoying a lovely afternoon out on the river...

Couldn't ask for better weather..

After sitting out the back of the ferry for 20 minutes or more Willow was keen to go to the front of the boat, so Chloe took her out there.  Max was still pretty keen to stay at the back.  He enjoyed seeing the wake of water as the boat cruised the river...

We had very little time at Southbank.  It was after 4pm when we got there and initially Sarah wanted us home by 5.30pm.  We could see that wasn't going to happen.  Normally the children do family movie night on a Friday night so I had to prepare them that it wouldn't be happening tonight but they could do it Saturday night instead.  They didn't seem to mind, probably because they were really enjoying themselves already...

Once we arrived at Southbank we went straight in search of an ice cream shop to buy our ice creams... We ended up finding a New Zealand Ice cream company shop and ordered our ice creams.  Willow ordered Mint Choc chip, Max wanted a rainbow ice-cream, I settled on Rum and Raisin and Chloe went for the Hokey Pokey. 

Once we had finished our ice-cream it was straight back to the ferry stop to catch a ferry back to Bulimba.  We got back there just as the ferry was leaving and it was going to be another good 10 minutes before the next ferry was due, so Chloe decided to hire a scooter and take the kids for a bit of a ride whilst we waited...

Willow was keen as mustard, but not so Max, he is not keen on trying new things, but whilst they scootered, he was happy to chase after them.  They only rode up and down the path in front of where we had to wait for the ferry, so that Chloe was able to end it when we saw the ferry approaching...

It was just on 5pm by the time we caught the ferry, which meant it would be six o'clock before we would arrive back at Bulimba.    Then we still had to drop Chloe home before heading back to the Dale...

The ferry we caught home had a lot more space at the front of the Cat, and there were seats we were able to sit on, so both the children wanted to sit at the front this time... I must admit, the wind had sprung up a litte so it was quite cold going home...

Once we arrived back at Chloe's we rang Sarah to let her know that we were on our way home, this allowed her to have the children's dinner on the table when we arrived home as well as their bath water ready for them.

It was 6.30pm by the time we got home.  Fortunately, Sarah had their dinner ready, so once they had eaten that, we bathed them quickly and had them in bed not long after 7pm.

Today we were just all going to chill out at home.   Dan and Chloe were picking up Indian for us from

Punjabi Palace at West End.  (Best Indian meals ever)  They arrived a little before 8pm, so we all enjoyed dinner together and watched a good movie together.

Chloe was sleeping over at Sarah's tonight as we had an early start in the morning as we had to get up early to drive to Greenmount to go Horseback riding...  This was something Willow was very exciting about and really looking forward to doing....