BEERS IN BRISBANE

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There were a few places we wanted to visit in the city (mostly bars) but we were unsure which areas had been affected by the floods. Because of the floods all public transport was free so we hopped on the bus and went to explore. I think that cities look amazing from the distance and there are usually some impressive buildings but we are not normally big city people. A lot of the time there are just the same collection of chain shops put together in a different order with lots of people rushing about. This city however did have a different feel to it. The locals didn’t walk into you and expect you to move out of the way. Everyone seemed to be relaxed and in no rush to get anywhere and on three separate occasions when we were looking at the map a local came and asked us if they could help. We can understand why it is becoming a popular place to move to.

Unfortunately most of the places we wanted to visit were closed due the floods. We did go for a beer in the Brussels bar. I had a raspberry beer that was more like drinking a smoothie and Andy went for the cherry beer - both were very good as was the service. As we were walking around the city we stopped at a few more bars before ending up in china town for dinner.

Rather than pay for another night at the campsite we chose to spend the following day in Brisbane and drive out in the evening to a free camp area. We spent a few hours wandering around the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful even though it was a gray and overcast day. Our favourite parts were the Bonsai house, the Japanese Gardens and the fragrant garden where we spent allot of time rubbing the leaves and guessing what the smell was. As we were finishing our walk the wind picked up and it got quite chilly. It was bbq weather if we were at home, but after being in the heat and humidity further north this felt like an autumn afternoon in the uk. In the grounds of the Gardens there is also a Planetarium. I haven’t been to one since I was a child so I was excited when we bought our tickets and got out of the cold. The show was narrated by Tom Hanks. He did a very good job of making you remember just how small we are in the huge scale of the universe. The show was followed by look at the night sky and what we could expect to see if we looked at the stars tonight. We really enjoyed doing something different and were now looking forward to the night so we could practice our new star gazing skills.

Earlier in the day we had picked out where we were spending the night, picking it because it was close to the water park we were off to tomorrow. As we drove into town it started to get dark and it looked like we were in for a storm. We were eager to get parked up and get dinner on the go before we got soaked. The sat nav was leading the way, but we soon found that the way was down a steep hill with water over the road that we could not cross. There was no other way round so we searched in the sat nav for any near by campsites. Luckily the town had a caravan park so we set the sat nav to take us there. When we arrived outside we were a little confused. We were parked outside an overgrown field with a derelict shed in one corner. As we looked around we noticed an old faded sign on which you could just make out the words Caravan Park. This place had quite obviously been derelict for some time and this now meant we were out of options. We were miles away from anything else and the storm was most definitely close.

We had noticed a small park on the edge of town. They normally don’t allow overnight parking but we decided to give it a go as there was no sign to say we could not stop there. During the evening a police car pulled into the car park and drove by a few times making sure we were not causing trouble, but they left us alone when they realised we were just tired and wanting to sleep.

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