River Rambling

Tuesday 17 September

A mixture of computer problems and socialising has kept me from writing these last entries for a week now. I must say, it has been lovely to spend time with people in the evenings instead!

Monday the 16th was a stormy, windy day in Brisbane and it was predicted to be worse on the Gold Coast, where we were headed.  So with the permission of our gracious hosts, we stayed longer with them in the north of Brisbane.  Though Tuesday was starting to "fine up", we'd decided to go to one of the theme parks on the Gold Coast on Wednesday, just to ensure a clear day.  That meant we had to find something to do on Tuesday.

In all the years that we have been coming up the Qld to go to Bribie Island over the winter, we have never "played the tourist" in Brisbane itself.  With some pointers from our hosts, we decided to park the car at New Farm and take the City Cat across to Southbank. Travelling on a river must be one of my favourite ways to get somewhere.  Even Amsterdam with its somewhat grotty street line, looks magnificent from the canal.  Focussing upon the water, cruising at a slower pace, and taking in the land or cityscape holds so much more appeal from this aspect.  Some of the boys thought we were taking far too long to get there but I trust some of you can appreciate my vantage point!

Apart from having lunch and a short stroll along the Southbank waterfront, we were here to go to the Science Centre in the Queensland Museum.  It was a bit like Questacon in Canberra, but on a much smaller scale.  They had some interesting exhibits, like the mind control test to see who could move a ball down the table in one direction while being hooked up to this device which measured brainwaves. We got to teleport (beam me up Scotty!) and to cloak ourselves with invisibility. We then got to try out some of our physical skills with the ball throw, short sprint, and grip strength stations.  We actually spent a good couple of hours in this section of the museum.  The rest of the time was spent looking in the Coral Coast, Victoria Cross medallists and Discovery sections.  The latter showed many stuffed animals and birds as well as pinned insects.  Mark was fascinated with it. I appreciated reading the stories and seeing some footage of the VC medallists from World War one.

Then it was back to the ferry, and this time we caught the free City Hopper to Sydney Street (one stop short of New Farm).  That meant we had to walk the last bit but it wasn't overly long.

Two photos from in front of the Art Gallery: