Family, friends and the crocodile hunter

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7 January 2011

Having lasted much longer last evening than either of us anticipated, we were awoken by our alarm this morning after nearly 12 hours welcome sleep. Not wanting to break from tradition, we engaged in a leisurely morning routine whilst consulting the local bus timetable and eventually made it out of the front door.

The sun was making an effort at poking through the clouds as we wondered towards Greenslopes Bus Terminus. I was expecting to emerge into a shabby bus station akin to both those reminiscent of both the UK and across Asia but this was something entirely dfferent. We were greeted with a bus station in the style of a very clean train station, complete with overpass.

Not only was the station spotless but, the dual carriageway that it straddles was deadly quiet. Yes, there is a part of the road network here in Bisbane which is reserved solely for the use of buses. One word - awesome. Chris says that Brisbane has only really developed in terms of size and infrastructure in the last ten years. The by product of this is that it hasn't grown organically in the way that most British cities developed and Brisbane planners have clearly given careful thought to how this city needs to function. It works, or at least it has for the last two days. We have seen no congestion and our bus was actually early. Ok, so the population of Brisbane is only around 1.8million in contrast to London's 7.2 million but you would still expect traffic jams, wouldn't you?

Every single bus, including the one that we wanted, was early . Apparently, this is absolutely normal. We were in town in no time and ready to set about the task of obtaining an Australian sim card for one of the phones that we were reunited with last night. Mobile phone shops are vastly more ubiquitous here than even convenience stores in the UK. So ubiquitous, in fact, that there was one right there when we stepped into the bus terminal. Great, this was going to be a quick operation enabling us to keep in touch with Chris and our friends in Sydney and beyond.

We did a little research yesterday afternoon, so knew what pay as you go sim deal we wanted. Nobody who we spoke to yesterday told us that we would need identification in order to purchase a sim card and, since you don't in the UK (or didn't prior to 28 August 2010), we were a little surprised. Fortunately, Gregg had both of our driving licences in his wallet so we could proceed with said purchase. However, that was not the end of the story. In Australia, it is necessary to register a sim card by providing, as a foreigner, your passport details. Fine, but both of our passports were a bus ride away. This was turning into a far more complicated process than anticipated.

I shall save you falling asleep in front of your computer by refraining from relating the entire story but eventually, something like three hours later, we had a functioning sim and I was able to attempt to make arrangements to meet with my friend Val later in the day.

In the meantime, we meandered around Brisbane and found our way to the river. Having explored the South Bank area, we decided to take a trip along the river on the City Cat whilst the sun was shinig. This is, it seems, a well used addition to the public transport infrastructure and offers great views of various areas in Central Brisbane. Eventually, we decided to alight in an area called New Farm as we had noticed a footpath running along side the river which would take us back in the direction of the CBD.

New Farm is clearly a pretty exclusive address and we enjoyed meandering along amongst beautiful houses having stopped to admire the newly iplemented municipal bicycle scheme. We were keen to hire them but it seems that you need a national security number and to pay a subscription for the bikes before you can make use of them, so we took a photo instead and carried on on our way.

Unfortunately, our perambulation was short-lived since the weather had other plans and the rain once again came lashing down forcing us to pick up another City Cat to complete our journey to the bar that we lunched in yesterday. We sheltered there for a while until the rain subsided in which time I has managed to half make contact with Val and we headed to a bar that she suggested we could meet at.

Val is originally from Australia but lived in the UK for four years, in which time we worked together. It has been a good three, if not four, years since we last saw each other but to all three of us, it felt like only days. Catching up was high octane and there was barely a moment of silence over a few glasses of wine and some delicious pizza. No sooner had we sat down, it seemed, and Gregg looked at his watch surprised to note that it was 11pm. We had no idea when the last bus would be, so hastily paid the bill and Val deposited us at the bus station.

We had a bit of a wait for the bus which was, again, early and a very swift trip to a bus stop bearing the name of the suburb in which Chris lives. We hopped off and then realised that we had no idea where we were. Until this afternoon that would have been disastrous, but I had a functioning iPhone in my bag which enabled us to sat nav our way home.

Chris was still up when we arrived back and the mouths once again motored into action. Several glasses of water and cups of tea later, we had miraculously made it past 2am and all decided that we really did need to hit the sack.

8 January 2011

This morning the weather looked promising so we decided that it was worth taking the risk of heading out of Brisbane to Australia Zoo. This is the rescue centre/zoo that was home to the famous crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin. It is about 1 hour 15 minutews outside of Brisbane and we were lucky enough to take a trip there in Chris' new Landrover. I shotgunned the front seat and off we went. The cityscape and motorway/dual carriage way that took us to the zoo were all reminiscent of their British counterparts. The trees even look similar even though the majority, if not all, are evergreen.

Not long after we arrived at the zoo, the rain started and didn't really stop but, fortunately, most of the animals didn't really seem to mind and we saw the majority of them. The unusual thing about this zoo from a British perspective is that most of the animals are native to Australia. There were some which aren't - such as the Asian elephants but this was an opportunity for us to lay our eyes on Kangaroos, Koalas and so the uniquely Australian list continues. The high lights are included in the attached photos, including Gregg feeding the elephants and receiving his gift of elephant snot.

Then the rain seriously came down and we got absolutely soaked. Despite that, we all had a really enjoyable day.

We returned to Chris' home via a supermarket that was already shut - at just gone 5pm on a Saturday - all a little bemused. After consulting Google, Chris advised us that the law in Queensland requires all major supermarkets to be closed by 5:30pm on a Saturday and that most actually close by 5pm. The trip to a Woolworths or a Coles will have to wait until tomorrow.

Gregg triumphed with then ingredients in the fridge and cupboard and we all sat down to a gigantic portion of tomato and pasta bake. Then it was time for these two travellers to wend our way to bed before the chatter absent mindedly took us once again into the wee small hours.

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Photos

Looking towards South Bank and the Brisbane wheel
from the other side of the river

Nepalese Pagoda
we just can't escape Asia!

Look, we were there
as was the wind - not a great look for me.

"Wetland Bird"
A stork or perhaps a crane...sorry folks, we can't do better than that.