Monday, 17th September 2012
The warm, sunny morning quickly became a warm, cloudy morning – possible thunderstorms forecast for late in the day. As soon as the peak hour traffic had cleared, we spent a good hour looking for the required bolt which was broken yesterday. The recommended supplier couldn’t help, and sent us to Arrow Caravans. I had a lovely time looking in new (and very expensive) caravans, including one with a fold down deck, while Himself went looking for his bolt. One was available, but it was thought a spare wouldn’t go astray, so it was off in the car again to another place for their last bolt!
Daisy Tomtom really earned her money today, with all the local running about before making the trip into the city and finding Southbank. We found an underground car park under the Performing Arts Centre without any trouble, paid a rather hefty parking fee and eventually managed to find out way out to Southbank. The Brisbane Festival is currently being held each night, so a few extra attractions were set up, including a lovely Chinese lantern walk. A Chinese tour party arrived at Southbank at much the same time as us and we both met at the Nepalese Pagoda at the same time. Someone (can’t mention his name) was very cheeky – he stood behind the door of the pagoda and when one unsuspecting Chinese chap was having his photo taken, very seriously I might add, two fingers in the shape of a V were held up behind the head of the aforementioned gentleman. Although not speaking Chinese, it was not hard to work out that the photographer was not amused!
We wandered through the rainforest walk and past the beach and swimming pool areas, with the assorted water features and eventually came upon a large mirrored sphere on the river bank – very impressive.
Although Leslie is not fond of ferris wheels and heights, he decided that the enclosed capsules of the Wheel of Brisbane would not pose a problem, so after having the obligatory $35 photo taken (and leaving it behind), we embarked on our ten minute journey. The view was really only spoilt by the heavy clouds, which did make everything look very grey. All went well until we stopped right at the top while more passengers were unloaded. Fortunately, the nice man opened our door first when we returned to ground level. It was rather a dash to the nearest coffee shop for a rather ordinary coffee to settle the nerves, and a rather ordinary sandwich for lunch. I think we selected the most ordinary place to buy food!
Having decided that the next excursion had to be at ground level, we settled on a river cruise (one of us does not like boats!!!). Although a little chilly in the wind, it was quite interesting as we travelled down river (or is that up river?) as far as Newstead, passing some very impressive dwellings on the way, remembering that the majority of these buildings had suffered badly in the recent floods. The number of apartments along this relatively short stretch of river is mind boggling, considering that they cost anything up to $8,000,000 each.
Back on terra firma once more, it was time to find the car! We didn’t have any problems finding the building we had exited from or the first of the many tunnels which had to be negotiated on our return to the carpark. I do have to say that we are now very familiar with many of the tunnels underneath the Performing Arts Centre, especially as we arrived in a carpark which didn’t look familiar and didn’t contain our car. After some backtracking and more turns and tunnels, we eventually found the car and the way out.
Traffic had increased considerably since the morning, and with many uncharted roads to be negotiated, Daisy did well to get us home, with only one minor hiccup when we nearly ended up in a toll tunnel.
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