Day 7 - Bats, Brisbane and Rugby

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G'Day Bloggers

It just seems bizarre to be getting up on a November day when the sun is bright and you know the day is going to be hot! But this is a November day, closer to Christmas than summer and people are dressed for the beach.

We walked in to Brisbane centre, only 20 minutes in to town, and went straight to the Queensland department of transport. The Australians love their ticket machines, take a ticket and sit down until we call you. A101, (6) that’s us, counter six.

We walk over to counter six (6) unsure of what we were doing, we don’t have a permanent address, but do have our British passports, credit cards, British driving licenses. We have filled in the correct form, I know we have been here before.

A very polite lady offers us here assistance, she is quite funny, quietly moaning about the Chinese and Indian migrants coming in to Australia, that she can’t understand. Whilst helping us through questions we are unsure about in these fairly simple forms, she even asks about the driving license place in Wales, ah the (DVLA) those people who go out of their way to make it as difficult as they can, and spoil you day generally, she laughs, confident that the process in Australia is simple.

Do you have proof of address, no we say, “We are going to travel” but have an invoice from the Rydges Southbank, Oh that’s fine, as we hand it over, but the invoice is only for one (1) night, as we have still two more nights before we check out. How long do you want your driving licence for, (AT) “er” forever, no 1,2,3,4 or 5 years? The lady suggests 5 years is best. 5 years please, I’m sure she is right, but I haven’t a clue why!

20 minutes later both Caroline and myself are proud owners of our Queensland driving licenses. A major achievement in the grand scheme of things.

I did so enjoy this experience; helpful people do so get the best out of me, and ease me through my day.

We head back out of town, after a wee break, there are not shortages of public conveniences, even the grotty ones, are no where near as grotty as ours, they are open, have soap, are clean and do not smell like “well you know what”

The walk takes us back around “streets beach” like central park, in New York, but so much smaller, it’s a man made beach in the city, near to the river, about the size of a football pitch, it’s a nicely designed “Urban” beach with sand and a couple of lagoons to swim in.
We jealously watch the people in the water on a very hot day.

After a relaxing lunch, our only criticism, was our hot chicken salads, did seem to lack chicken, !!! but still, we just sit for a while and watch a white ibis scavenging for food, with quite large bird, about the size of a gooses with a bill about 8” long seemed quite put out, in not finding any bounty. He hops up on to an empty table, trying to size the joint up.

We head back to our room as we have some stuff to do; we need a hire car for a month, and cannot move forwards until certain things get done (Transport, somewhere to rent up to Christmas) and so on.

We get changed and head out to the “famous” Indian restaurant we went to with Gary and Karen on our last trip, why is it famous well Gary ordered a dish that never turned up, I think it was Tandoori Chicken, I wondered when we got there they might say “Just another ten minutes”, what that’s 23 months late?

Anyway we had a good meal, and walked back to the cafés where their was a small evening market selling mostly hand made stuff, real nice gear. We watch a street magician, Steve London, for 20 minutes who was good, it must be hard to make a reasonable living doing this type of work, if you are good let alone if you are only mediocre. Still this guy was quick and we happily contributed for his efforts.

A live band was playing and we wanted to sit a listen, so we grabbed a takeaway coffee nearby and went back to listen, by the time we got back they were taking a break from play so we walked up to streets beach, took our shoes off and dangled our feet in to the cool water, whilst drinking our coffee and watching about 30 people still swimming.

Reflecting on our experiences and conversations of the day, one thing stuck in our minds was the price of petrol per litre - hold on to your hats - 47p per litre - and the Aussies think that is bad!! We are meeting some lovely people along the way and that is making this transition for us easier.

There appears to be something major happening in Brisbane next week, the hotel is inundated with England Rugby fans for some upcoming game of rugby playing next weekend? Not really certain of details but will try and find out more. Typical when we were in Austria back in June we accidentally coincided with the Football World Cup and ended up sharing our resort with the Russian Football team.

Whilst our feet were dangling in the cool waters a large bat flew overhead and vanished into the palm trees.

Hopefully we may be successful in sleeping to night.

Andy

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Photos

Road Safety Advice
Just to show that we are taking this very seriously we picked up these leaflets at the Queensland Department of Transport on Road Safety in Australia. They contain very good advice.

Comments

[GLYN BLACKWOOD]

Hello travellers, love reading the blogs and wondered if you two have shares in star bucks? they won't feel the credit crunch with you two coffee lovers out there. Wow sounds fantastic out there guys very jealous, still me and Katie are just going over to the big house across the road for a massive party, whole street is invited will let you no how its goes!!!. Only joking, well going to bed now nice early start tomorrow 6am [ remember that Andy?] look forward to the next blog from Glyn oh and the wife