To Brisbane Sunday 3/9/08

We’re eager beavers this morning and on the beach at 7:30 for our shore walk. We have to be out of our apartment by 10:30 so we need this last opportunity to enforce our acquaintance with the sand and water. It is mostly older folks at this hour out for their morning constitutional and of course the ever present surfers. There are also a few backpackers and other young people who probably did not make it to bed last night along with people of various persuasions

experiencing some type of spiritual awakening. There are even a few tents pitched up near the grasses where we saw the snake on Friday. We walk the mile to the end of the beach and on our way back we meet a group of at least a hundred middle-agers walking in a long line in the other direction. All are in swim wear with many carrying goggles and we finally figure out that this is a club of like-minded individuals who walk to the point at the end of the public beach and then swim back as a Sunday morning ritual. A sort of middle-aged mini biathlon although it does look like a scene from a sci-fi film.

We grab a bite of brekkie, pack up and hit the road at 10:30 sharp heading north to Brisbane. If we wanted to do this the fast way we could barrel up the motorway, and it would even be easy to skip Brisbane altogether and move another couple hours up to Noosa where we will be on Monday and Tuesday. Brisbane is Australia's third largest city at about 1.8 million people, is the capital of Queensland, and we think we need a taste of it. We're on the slow road and a couple hours out we pass through Tweeds Head and Coolangata which are the twin cities on the border between New South Wales and Queensland. We stop for supplies and John threatens to be crabby if he is not fed, so we share a tuna Subway sub. The 60-mile stretch between Coolangata and Brisbane is reminiscent of traveling between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami with high rise hotels and apartments, casinos, a major airport and convention center, and dozens of marinas with very big boats. This is the real gold of the Gold Coast.

As we crossed into Queensland we moved the clocks back one hour and now we think we are 6-hours behind and one day ahead of home as we were in Victoria, but we are never sure. What we know is that it is 2:00 here when we check in to our Brisbane hotel and head out to explore the city. Our hotel is on top of a hill overlooking the business district and it is a steep 20-minute walk down to the action. The main shopping area pivots around Queen Street, a six block long pedestrian mall stretching between Edward Street, where we arrive, and the river. The street cants up toward the river bluff and, like Grafton Street in Dublin, if you are at the top or bottom of the street you can see everyone on it. We snoop around the shops, check out a little crafty market at the Eagle Street Pier, walk along the river and botanical gardens, and find Queensland Parliament and a collection of the state government buildings. We return to Queen Street for a late afternoon beer on a second story porch overlooking the shoppers and lay-abouts while we contemplate the hike back up the hill.

We survive the climb and book an Italian/Australian restaurant for dinner (also back down the hill). We've found a more direct route to the restaurant but it still takes 20-minutes. With the hour time change it is already dark at 7:00 as we near the restaurant so we noticed that it was getting windy but didn't notice that the skies had changed dramatically. We feel a couple drops as we walk in the door and by the time we get to our enclosed patio table it is pouring outside. We are so lucky. The signature dish at this restaurant, Il Centro, is a sand crab lasagne (hence the Italian/Oz combo) and it is hard to describe. It is a good sized slab stuffed with fresh crab meat and sits in a big pasta bowl in an inch of rich sauce, much like a lobster bisque. The whole thing oozes of cream and butter and rich shellfish stock and it is, in a word, sinful. Mary described herself as Thanksgiving-full and John couldn't speak. We may now have another "best dish of the trip." It has rained twice while we ate but we risk getting wet in order to walk off a couple of the calories and we arrive high, dry and puffing at our hotel. We probably won't be going out clubbing tonight.

Today's local headline: Singing Dingo throws in the howl Northern Territory News (Plinky, a Dingo that has been "singing" at a NT pub for the last nine years is out of work as the pub has been sold. Plingo's master said he would not include the dog in the sale of the pub and may now take him on tour.)