Day 1 – Meeting an Old Mate
Today we had a fairly long trip to Brisbane to meet up and
stay with my mate Tony, originally from Jersey.
As usual we packed up and headed off, once again enjoying
listening to our talkie book along the way.
We passed some nice scenery along the way and were making very good time
so we thought we would stop off for lunch at a nice resort called Cotton Tree.
After lunch we continued onto Brisbane and soon we were
pulling up outside Tony’s house in the Brisbane suburbs. It had been about 4 years since I had last
seen him in London and it was 20 years before that when we both lived in
Jersey, so it was great to see him when he welcomed us into his house (Or
should I say mansion!!).
Tony showed us around his place and it was stunning, detached
with four bedrooms (two en-suite), four living room’s, laundry room, separate
bathroom, cover decking round two sides, swimming pool and a double garage!
The grand tour done we then relaxed on one of the veranda’s
with a few cool ones before ordering a curry in the early evening. Unfortunately Tony’s wife Deb, who is a
teacher had an event that evening so the three of us sat around catching up chatting,
drinking and discovering that Tony’s memory is worse than me (which is saying
something!).
About three hours after fetching it we finally warmed up the
curry in the microwave and got stuck into that as well as switching to the
enemy (Red Wine). The alcohol was now
kicking in and we were taking selfies and posting them onto Facebook (which
took about an hour to create and label!) to see how many likes we would get by
the end of the night (very sad!), we were amazed after a few hours later when
we only had 3 likes (one of them being Shelley) and not one from any of our
Jersey mates (you’re now all dead to us!!).
Later on Deb got back from work and we all sat chatting for
a while before Shell and I headed off to our lovely bedroom for the night
(Sorry Muriel).
Day 2 – Tony’s Tours & Sock Wrestling
Once again Deb was working (School Teacher’s work too hard!)
so after a breakfast where I was introduced to my first Vegemite on toast experience
(Not Bad) Tony had kindly offered to show us around Brissie.
First off, Tony drove us (In his new BMW – flash bastard!!)
up to Mount Coot-tha a view point up a hill that looked over the whole of
Brisbane where we stopped for 15 minutes to take it all in and get a few
pictures.
He then drove us into the centre of town where after a short
while we found ‘a park’’ (parking space to you and me!) and we headed off to
the river. We stopped at a nice spot right
next to the river and had a coffee before heading off again.
Next we boarded a river boat and headed up river taking in
the scenery and large apartments and office blocks along the way, with Tony’s tour
guide commentary as we went, until we disembarked at a place called South Bank.
South Bank was a lovely pedestrianised park that ran along
the riverbank that even included a man-made beach area and nice swimming pool,
which was pretty cool. Whilst wandering
around the park I spotted a furry animal sleeping in a tree, which after Tour
Guide Tony consulted with Deb via a text photo, was identified as a Possum.
From here we wandered through a nearby craft market where we
picked up some frankfurter hot dogs which we ate in the park before heading
back across a bridge that took us into the main shopping area.
We had a look around here with Tony pointing out various
bits and pieces before stopping at a bar right on the river to have a coffee
(Tony) and a beer (Glenn & Shell).
It was now getting late in the afternoon so we caught the
river taxi back to Tony’s car and then drove back to Chateaux Ruellan, via a
bottle shop to replenish stocks from the previous night.
Once back at Tony’s we had a couple of drinks on the decking
before Tony’s friend’s Fi, Jason and their kids came round for a Barbeque that
had been arranged for that evening, so we sat chatting to them until Deb returned
from work.
Tony then fired up the bar-be which was to be our first
authentic Aussie Bar-Be-Que since we had arrived in Oz. Jason and I stood around blokie style whilst
we watched Tony grill steaks, mushrooms and corn on the cob.
We all then sat down for dinner which was great, and had a
few glasses of wine before the madness began and we started playing party
games.
It all began with Tony challenging Benny (Fi & Jason’s
youngest) to an arm wrestling contest, which then developed into a father and
son contest, where Tony proved he still was the daddy (just!).
Stupidly over the Bar-Be-Que I had mentioned some sock
wrestling we had watched at a music festival, where two people get blind folded
and the object is to try and remove each other’s socks. So after the arm wrestling I was pitched into
a sock wrestling match against Benny, who proved to be very agile and had my
socks off first (well I couldn’t forearm smash a 7 year old!!).
A couple of contests later and it was decided that the
Jersey boys had to go into battle and after a bit of rolling round on the
floor, much to the amusement of the spectators, Tony came out victorious (well
I had to let the host win…….honest!!).
As it was getting later in the evening and now with two
hyper-active kids on a Sunday night, Fi and Jason had to call it a night and
left us to it. Deb, Tone, Shell and I
then had a few more drinks and played a couple of more sedate party games
before turning in for the night.
Day 3 – This Remind’s us why we are travelling
Tony, although he was working today (Monday) had said it was
no problem to stay for as long as we wanted and we didn’t need persuading. So
he said we could come with him on his morning commute and hang out by ourselves
in the city.
Seeing Tony get ready
for work, ironing his shirt and then catching the train into town with miserable
quiet commuters made us realise how lucky we were to be travelling and why we
were doing it.
We left Tony at his office and then headed back to the South
Bank area where after walking around we found a pitch on the grass just above
the beach area and then just relaxed for the morning in the sun reading our
books and people watching.
Around 1 we figured it was beer o’clock and time to grab
some food so after looking around we found a bar to have a couple of beers
in. Whilst we were sat there we were
amazed watching people passing that were doing the latest craze of hunting for
Pokemon’s on their phones. In fact once
we had noticed it seemed that 90% of the people passing were doing this, kids,
teenagers, couples pushing prams and people who were old enough to know better,
very bizarre!!!
As we were fascinated by this we ordered some food (too much
food) and grabbed another drink and stayed there for another hour or so before
moving on.
Just to prove we are not philistines we then headed for a
modern art gallery to have a look around which lasted around 30 minutes, but I
was impressed that they had works by, Degas, Rubin’s and other famous artists.
Culture done we then headed back to the shopping area to
pick up a gift for Tony & Deb to thank them for letting us stay before
heading to a bar whilst we waited for Tony to finish work for the day.
After catching the train back to Tony’s place we then popped
out to the supermarket to pick up some ingredients so that we could cook for
Tony and Deb as they had been working all day.
In the evening we cooked up my now very passable Chilli and
when Deb came back from work we served up and it seemed to go down pretty well,
which was a relief as we do it pretty hot.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting and with a couple of drinks
before heading for bed.
It was also fun winding up Tony about a speech he was going
to have to make (which he didn’t fancy doing) if he won the Queensland personal
banker of the year award at an awards ceremony on the upcoming Friday (we have
since learnt he won this and is now going to represent Queensland in Sydney in
the near future – well done Tone!).
We would like to say thanks to Tony and Deb for a fantastic
stay at your home and making us feel so welcome, you’re just lucky that Shell
and I didn’t change the locks and squat.
Hopefully it won’t be another 4 years until we see each other
again. Also hopefully this blog will
refresh your memory for these three days!!
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