Advertisement
Published: December 6th 2006
Brisbane, aka Brisvegas or Brissie, was the first big city I'd seen since Sydney 2 months ago, and the sight of the business district and people wearing suits had unwanted echoes of my previous life, briefly plunging me into a bout of melancholy that was exacerbated by both the lack of things to do in the city and the fact I didn't know anyone there. Fortunately life has the happy knack of providing reminders when they're most needed of just why you made the decisions that you made, and this time was no exception.
The city itself was unremarkable in the way I've found most cities here are, though I did spend a great deal of time in the peace and shade of the Botanical Gardens. On my first visit there, I was marvelling at the ominously dark grey clouds moving in from the north, accompanied by thunderous rumbling, when the increasingly rapid patter of falling raindrops forced me to seek refuge under a nearby tree. Just minutes later, the water was pelting down with such ferocity that the tree ceased to provide any cover and I started walking in the open as I was already sodden. Someone upstairs opened
the tap even further, and the downpour began to bounce up dirt from the pavement, which I subsequently found all over my clothes, skin, and hair. This stopped being amusing very quickly and I parked myself in a bus shelter that failed me when the rising wind started to drive the rain horizontally.
In a meteorologically interesting, but personally unwanted, change, the temperature suddenly dropped and the rainstorm segued smoothly into a rattling hailstorm that left me shivering. Several minutes later that too subsided and I was able to make my damp way back to the hostel for a complete change of clothes. I also discovered that my bag had been so thoroughly drenched that my camera was wet and certain fairly fundamental functions - such as the ability to focus - had been lost. Fortunately that returned when the thing had completely dried out.
The Museum of Queensland was the only place of cultural interest that I visited. Amongst other significant facts I encountered there were the ones that there are thought to be only 65 northern hairy-nosed wombats in existence, which explains why I haven't exactly been falling over them, and salt water crocs have been
seen nearly 500km out to sea. There was also a special exhibition devoted to the Ashes, including the "original" urn, securely positioned behind a rope that presumably incorporated a motion sensor-equipped death ray.
Though the weather seemed rather inappropriate for such things based on my background of wintry European Christmases, my arrival in Brisbane coincided with the putting up of the city's Christmas decorations, including a large tree. I also saw a window display - named "Wombat Divine" - in a department store that chronicled the sad tale of a wombat's long search to find a suitable part in the Nativity play, culminating in the decision that he would be ideal as the baby Jesus because of his natural tendency to sleep through the entire production.
I wasn't too impressed with the hostels I stayed in. One of them had the worst smell of stale teenagers that I've yet encountered, and the other had apparently been designed as a highly efficient greenhouse. I did have a couple of interesting dormmates though. One ran the dinner sessions at Brisbane's most famous Hare Krishna restaurant - he invited me to their Sunday feast but it sounded as though the first
course would consist of an hour of chanting, which wouldn't provide much sustenance, spiritual or otherwise, to my heathen stomach. Another was an alcoholic who was about to start a 3 week recovery program in the Outback. Remembering the last alcoholic who'd been in my dorm (see Broome blog entry), I was relieved when the dorm didn't become an impromptu urinal.
While wandering around the streets of Brisbane I bumped into an English couple Matt and Michelle who'd been in my set in Hervey Bay. They mentioned that they had tickets for the Great Britain vs Australia Tri-Nations rugby league game that evening. With nothing else on my agenda, and with an interest in catching up on what they'd been doing over the previous 2 weeks, I said I'd join them for drinks beforehand and try to get a ticket at the gate.
The ground, Suncorp Stadium, was only about 15 minutes' walk from the hostel, and close to the convenient watering holes along Petrie Terrace. It later turned out that the crowd at the game was over 40,000, and I can well believe that most of them were crammed into the various bars in the area. A
couple of pre-game lagers and we wandered along to the stadium.
Despite Australia already having qualified for the Tri-Nations final, there was plenty of local interest and I was unable to get a ticket anywhere near Matt and Michelle. I ended up with a seat in the top tier, behind one set of goalposts. My neighbours were predominantly Aussies, with a couple of English guys who provided their own inane commentary as though seeing a game of rugby for the first time ("He's going up the middle", "He's got an overlap", etc).
Great Britain produced a dismal performance, shipping 2 early tries and showing a level of aggression more suited to a beach volleyball team. The crowd clearly wasn't enthralled by this either, as a Mexican wave managed 4 complete circuits before petering out.
After the match the 3 of us met up again, joined by 2 English guys - Mark and Chris - who had been in Matt and Michelle's section. We soon encountered the laughable situation of dress codes being enforced in a street full of rugby fans. First Matt was refused entry because he was wearing sandals. Then I was refused entry because I
was wearing shorts. Then, after I'd returned to the hostel to change into my trousers, I was refused entry to the same place for wearing trainers. When I tactfully expressed my frustration at not being told all the ways that I was violating the dress code all at once, the bouncer relented and let me in.
During the evening several scuffles broke out in the place, and I was left wondering why they were keen on keeping out people with shorts but letting in people with short tempers. I also saw several other people wearing trainers, however they were of a variety that had never seen any physical exercise.
After a number of beers and some restrained boogeying, one member of the group (who will remain nameless) fell asleep on one of the couches, which was a sign that perhaps we should all leave. Fortunately a difficult decision between the adjacent best lap dancing club in Queensland and a kebab shop was decided in favour of the latter, preserving a typically English end to the evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.485s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 34; qc: 155; dbt: 0.2485s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Shane
non-member comment
Bringing back memories
Hello fellow traveller! Happened apon your blog from the homepage you will be glad to know, (I always wondered how to go about getting mine there), and spied a sculpture that I happened to pose with back in July with two georgous girls form Rome that I happened to be travelling with. www.travelblog.org/bloggers/frolik/ to see it! Enjoy your travels my friend, be sure to hit Byron Bay if you have not already! Kiwi, in Canada