briefly in Brisbane

Cairns to Brisbane… probably my mother’s least favourite flight. A brutal 4am trip to the airport…most people would try to get to bed at a reasonable hour in order to be prepared for the departure in the morning. Well… let’s just say that it was the last time I was going to see a small handful of friends and their were obviously really good drink deals at Gilligans…. Sorry mom, again.

Arrived in Brisbane airport …a little too drunk to drive the rental car so my mum had to face fears greater than climbing heart attack hill. Driving on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car.

Dear Brisbane drivers,

We won’t be making any right turns AT ALL and when we’re making our many left turns we’ll be sure to indicate with our windshield wipers! No worries.

Cheers, 

P.S. no promises about yielding to the right of way in ANY roundabout…

We only had the day in Brissie so we did the grand tour. We started out on the other side of the Brisbane River in the South Bank area. We parked the car and tried to have a peaceful lunch but found that the ibis's wanted our lunch as much as we did. They were like a brave and freakier version of a seagull. Won't leave you alone until they get what they want... and when I say that I mean they will jump onto your table and take your chips out of your hand!

We used the river as our means of transportation. Imagine the subway… but instead of an underground train… a boat! Cool as.

We got off downtown because we were told to check out the Queen Street Mall. Okay... whatever, just a mall right? Imagine a mall… but all outside. Store fronts, restaurants, patios, awnings, no cars. Neat-O!!! I really liked the way the city was set up… I mean I guess you can make things pretty sweet if you’re never expecting the temperature to really get below 15°C.

Then once we walked the entire CBD we ended up in the Botanic Gardens. A really lovely park, green lush everywhere. A great place to sit and hang out and frollick and picnic… until you need to use the toilet. Which apparently was an option, marked by multiple signs indicating that they were 200m, then 50m in a certain direction with no apparent way to miss them yet they were still no where to be found. We probably searched for a good 30 minutes which also involved asking numerous people who obviously looked at us like one of our head’s was missing and the other was wearing it… well we eventually found them up a hill and around a corner and behind a building surrounded by construction.

Dear Brisbane Botanic Gardens,

Please update your directional toilet signs or consider providing a compass or gps device.

Anyways, all we needed to do was go pee before our car ride up the sunshine coast to the little town of Noosaville! To our little villa where we will be spending the next three nights!

Sincerely, AUS