The Diary Went in to see about my Eurail Pass. It's no good to me as I'm a European resident. Now I've got to work out some other way of getting back home. I can't get an inter-rail pass without returining to the UK either. Christy said on the phone and in a letter that she wants to come across to Europe and perhaps travel with me at the end of the year. We'll have to see what happens.
Story Bridge, Brisbane
We all met up at 12:30 and spent several hours in the science museum reliving school science experiments. We proved that we aren't tone deaf, turned ourselves into gyroscopes, raced bubbles, played twinkle, twinkle little star on a thong-o-phone, played in the weird room and left semi-permanent shadows. Wow!
Then we went to catch the bus to take us to the look-out in the hills. We then discovered there is only one bus per day and we'd missed it. Next time. Evening meal in a strange 'mediterranean' restaurant.
The view we didn't get
2012 Eurail passes could only be used by non-European passport holders, inter-rail tickets could only be purchased in your home country. My plans to carry on travelling via train once I got off the trans-mongolian express in helsinki were looking a little shaky, but I did have plenty of time up my sleeve, though I imagined that sorting it all out in Australia would be easier than doing it in Mongolia or Nepal.
The lookout in the hills - the hill is Mt Coot-tha. Home of Channel 9 Brisbane (QTQ) and the other commercial free-to-air stations in Australia. I'd go back there several times with work.
The Diary We were about to check out when the man on the desk said he had better rooms and that we were in his worst rooms. We got ourselves a far, far better room and a discount to boot. I went into town to hand in my tax form - but they couldn't give me the money over the counter.
In the arvo we went on the XXXX tour after yet more ineptitude by the management. They were late and blamed everyone else. Then they said people in sandals would have to change when it didn't matter. Still, the free beer was OK. Didn't find out what XXXX stood for or why stubbies come in 375ml sizes.
In the evening we discovered our room-mate was mad Derek the sleep-talking ex-Kings Cross bouncer from South Australia.
2012 I assume the inept management was another reference to the staff at the hos-tell.
The XXXX brand was first introduced in 1924 and is a throwback to the long standing tradition of using Xs to indicate the strength of an ale. The brand name also built upon XXX Sparkling Ale introduced in 1878. The brand is used on theXXXX Bitter,XXXX Gold,XXXX Light Bitter(Lager),XXXX DL(Diet Lager) andSovereign(Lager)."
Why are stubbies 375ml (in Aus) ? Still don't know.
The Diary And on to Brisbun we went. But first we were all annoyed in the backpackers bus by a fuckin' young fuckin' stoopid fuckin', effing and blinding English lad who thought he fuckin' well knew it fuckin' all. It was all going to be so fuckin' easy after he got his business and sport degree from Surrey University. Little does he know. Ha! I didn't even know Surrey had a university.
Brisbane at night
On to Brissie where we were picked up from the beautiful transit centre and taken to 'Somewhere to Stay' in a minibus that was 'somewhere beyond repair'. They first mucked up by allocating 3 of us to a room with only one spare bed. After that was sorted out we decided the place was a dump anyway and went to look for somewhere else. We went into town and I headed to the PW office to pick up my group certificate and used the phones there to call Christy and STA.
In the evening we went for an all you can eat pizza place and did just that - and drank a record number of cups of tea.
2012 We didn't meet too many obnoxious people on the road but this lad was one. My main gripe was with backpackers that just stayed in one place and laid on the beach for months on end. I needed to keep moving and seeing things.
I went to PW to try as I was still tying up the financial loose ends of my working stint in Sydney. I needed the certificate to lodge my taxes to try and get some money back before leaving the country. I think I called STA as I was trying to add a rail pass to the end of my Trans-mongolian trip but also work out if I could do a trip back to Sydney and then join back up with Oz and Beth. I found the trip up the Australian East Coast a bit dull. I preferred the more built up places such as Brisbane (Leeds with sun) and the Gold Coast to the small seaside places. We did get out on some yachts later on as you will shortly see and that was great - activity!
Somewhere to Stay has obviously come a long way by the look of the website - remember there were no websites or mobile phones back then. Funnily enough it's round the corner from a couple of our Brisbane offices that my IT team look after.
And here's a clip from my favourite Brisbane band.....
Surfer's to Brisvegas - 78km Total distance since Sydney - 1,082km
