Kath & Kel, Day-Night

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Waking up this morning to the newspapers that were full of the devastation from last night’s storms across the Gold Coast. A mini tornado swept the Gold Coast and the outskirts of Brisbane. We watched the storm safely ensconced in hour hotel room without realising the devastation that it was leaving in its wake. Indeed our hotel suffered only with a power cut, yet houses in the region have lost their roofs, trees are down and sadly one man died after being swept away by waters in a storm drain.

One woman on the news this morning was showing the size of the hailstones that came down, they were the size of golf balls - I think she had kept them in her freezer to show the news crews as they were coming round. The skies tend to go a green colour when it is going to hail.

I received a text from Karen this morning to say that she was watching ‘I am a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’, coming from the rainforest in the North of New South Wales; of course I have seen it on the map so I know exactly where they are filming. I hope that they were not at the mercy of yesterday’s storms that swept up the Gold Coast; it might be interesting viewing tonight.

We probably would not be able to get near the place, not that we are heading in that direction as yet; I have read that the 440 cast and crew take up most of the area. When the celebrities are voted off they usually stay at the Versace hotel, it would be nice to find out where that is although I am sure as the name of the hotel indicates that it may be out of our price range.

I started to write the blog early as it has been raining outside this morning, however it looks as if it is starting to brighten up.

We are both looking forward to picking up our hire car tomorrow and heading up the coast to Alexandra. Once we are there we can get on and do things like going round and looking for a vehicle to buy and going to the world famous Australia Zoo. It was Steve Irwin day on last Saturday; this marks two years to the day that Steve Irwin died.

So for the Kath and Kim fans amongst you - Andy and I are now known as Mr & Mrs Day Night. If you want to know more then read on:

Well, the rain stopped and finally we made it out of the hotel, going to the post office to check if we had any mail. Sadly there was none, which meant that our bankcards had not come through. They could still be another couple of days, we were just being hopeful. However as we are leaving Brisbane tomorrow it left us with a small problem that we wanted to use our Australian bank accounts to access our money rather than continue to use our UK bank account. We went into ANZ as they offered to do us an emergency debit card to use our account which they have very kindly done for us, however the cards actually have Mr & Mrs Day & Night on them! I also point out please don’t get us confused with the comedy couple from Melbourne.

We now have an Australian Mobile Telephone (Vodafone). I am not putting the number on the blog; if you want it then you will have to ask us by email.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at the Brisbane Wheel, which I have to say looked very tame - oo er… that is until we were sat in it. I think I felt very sick when it started to move upwards, you are in quite a small gondola, it is nothing like the London Eye or the Singapore Flyer, this one moves quite fast, it also stopped at the top (probably to let more people on/off) for quite a while and we were gently blowing in the wind. Andy explained to me that holding onto the seats baring white knuckles was probably going to make no difference - ha that’s what he thinks - it made me feel a little bit more secure!

While we were queuing the girl said to us that it usually goes round 3 times and if we were lucky we would get four, well how unlucky for me, we went round 6 times!!! Although I have to say that by then I was feeling quite comfortable.

Back at the hotel, thoughts of packing are entering my head, which I must get on with.

Big news over here at the moment is the potential for a new skin cancer vaccine, however that won’t be available for another 10 years or so. Wandering around Brisbane this afternoon we saw a great shop which contained everything that you could possibly need that offers 30+ protection from the harsh effects of the sun. I expect that there are plenty more of those around.

Overall today has been very grey and rainy in Brisbane, not good for photography at all. Apparently some locals are saying that yesterday’s storms have been the worst in 30 years, well how typical is that? We must have brought the British weather with us, sorry Australia!

Did we mention that Australian money is waterproof, “Crikey” we hear you say in unison !! Well it is, it has a thin plastisized coating, and we were told it is produced like this due to their aquatic lifestyle. Do wet suits have pockets, Mmmm ? if they don’t, where do they keep their money? We have proved the money is waterproof, Andy went to Streets Beach with 50 Dollars in his trunks it was not soggy and intact after a mornings swimming. I did feel for the bloke he handed it over to for lunch (If he had only known where it had been).

Until the next time.

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Photos

Storm
This is about the only picture that I managed to capture a single bolt of lightning. The lightning was spectacular - but the devastation from the storm was so immense that they declared Brisbane a disaster zone.

Brisbane CBD
This is just part of Brisbane CBD 'Central Business District'

Brisbane CBD
View from the Wheel of part of the Cultural Centre Promenade and Brisbane CBD

Brisbane Wheel
Looks tiny doesn't it? Well it did until we got in it!

Brisbane Southbank
Lower part of the picture shows the City Cat - I like to call it the 'Kitty Cat' - I do fancy taking that to work every day - beats the traffic on the Avenue!