The Sunshine State

I really don't like multiviews, not even a bit...unless they are as charming as this one :D Beautiful postcard recieved through facebook group. This is my first postcard from Australia! 

Queensland is often reffered as the Sunshine State due to the climate. Capricorn Coast's name comes from it's location on the Tropic of Capricorn. Not all of the coast is accessable- part of it is taken by Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area. The largest town on the Capricorn Coast is Rockhampton, the area’s cattle farming centre.  Rockhampton has got some  historical buildings from the times of gold rushes.

 It looks wonderful, doesn't it?

Harbour Bridge, New Zealand

It was a bit strange to recieve postcard from New Zealand that wasn't from my boyfriend ;) I've discovered Round Robins on postcrossing  forum and I think my wallet will be pernamently empty. Luckily I need to gain trust first so I can take part only in one RR group from Bridges RR. I'm doing my best to not even check other groups ;)

Bridge that can be seen on the postcard shows Auckland Harbour Bridge which is a part of state Highway 1- the longest road in the North Island. There are 8 lines for the cars and- what is suprising to me - there is no walking or cycling access. Only tourists can walk on the span  when they are on guided tours. I found some facts about the bridge here

• The Auckland Harbour Bridge was opened on 30th of May 1959 and it took over 200 workers around 4 years to build.

• It was made with 6500 tonnes of concrete and nearly 6000 tonnes of steel.

• When the bridge was first built it only had four lanes but after a few years they needed to make the bridge bigger to cope with all the traffic so they added two lanes to each side. The new lanes were called “clippons” because they were made in Japan, shipped to New Zealand on huge ships and then clipped into place with huge steel pins and rods.

• The Auckland Harbour Bridge cost 16 million dollars to build over 40 years ago! The clippons were another 13.5 million dollars1

• They decided to build a harbour bridge because the traffic wanting to go from Auckland City to the North Shore or vice versa was growing all the time and the trip round the harbour through West Auckland used to take hours. 

• Before the bridge was built vehicles and passengers also used ferries to get from one side to the other. Ferries are boats that take either cars or passengers or both.

• The span between the water and the bridge is about 15 stories high – high enough for most yachts to sail under but not high enough for many of the cruise ships, tankers and cargo ships that come into the Auckland Wharfs

• The bridge is 1,021 meters long (nearly 10 rugby fields long)

Aloha!

Hawai'i is the newest of the United States located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, about 4 000 km away from the main land. Capital of the state is Honolulu. Archipelago contains 137 islands but only 8 of them are inhabitated.  Hawai'i means homeland in Hawaiian language which has only by 2000 native speakers . The language is connected with Maori and Samoan- I wish I couls speak Maori one day :)

Hawaii is the only state of the United States that:

• is not geographically located in North America
• grows coffee
• is completely surrounded by water
• is entirely an archipelago
• has a royal palace
• does not have a straight line in its state boundary (found on Wikipedia)

Brigadeiro de Brasil

It was a great suprise for me to see this in my mailbox:

That's the postcrossing official postcard from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. It shows Guanabara Bay and the Sugar Loaf - the hill/island that can be seen there. I think the photo was taken from the statue of  Christ the Redeemer.

Girl who sent it was really nice and instead of "happy postcrossing" she decided to write the recipe for the most famous and traditional dessert- Brigadeiro which looks like this:

I will try the recipe soon and I hope it will look at least partially as amazing as it looks at the photo. 

I was complaining recently that my official postcards are taking long time to arrive to me. If they are all as nice as this one I think it's worth waiting for!

Obrigado Eliana!