I had a frizzon of excitement arriving in Brisbane, as to my delight there was actual public transport! Public transport that connected the airport to the city! What modern thinking Brisbane?! (Now I’m saying this because up to now you had to get a cab, or mule or walk 5km to the nearest homestead where they might, if you’re lucky be going in to market and give you a lift on the tractor). But Brisbane has the excitingly named ‘Air Train’, I had visions of Blade Runner, flying cars, but essentially it’s an overground train. A relief nonetheless and a strange sort of comfort as something familiar to a Londoner. I got my Go Card (oyster equivalent) got the train to the city, hopped on a bus (well ok, not hopped so much as clambered) and set off for my new Air BnB.
The city again had that buzzy familiar feel, high rises mixed with old architecture, busy people, people in suits, people wearing black (!) (for the first time I wasn’t being stared at for wearing long trousers) and then we crossed the river to see this:
Large concrete buildings, promenades and a huge Ferris wheel, I had to blink, were my powers of teleporting kicking in? Was I looking at the South Bank? Well, yes, I was as it turns out. This is Brisbane’s south bank and cultural district. But it’s almost like the sort of fantasy south bank that Londoners might dream of on a balmy summers eve. It has the usual Art Galleries, theatres and eateries but then has a rain forest walk, parklands, playgrounds, out door amphitheatres, pagodas and a beach complete with lifeguards (no sharks, crocs or stingers, even better!).
Now I have been very blessed in the people I have met so far on my travels (well apart from Tony, I’m still waiting for the court order to take effect). But this week I have really felt like I was at home and that has been down to the wonderful extended Grace family in particular my new veryseriousadventure buddy Nicola. Nicola is the sister in law of my lovely friend (and dentist!) Penny Grace (Fyfield) and Auntie to the amazing Ophelia and super talented Jemima. (Hello girls!) A Yorkshire lass from Sheffield now living in Australia Nicola has been the most generous and hilarious companion and guide. (Ugh that’s enough niceitties she’s actually a pint wielding blithering idiot who is probably a huge embarrassment to the entire family) (so we were well matched)!
Very bravely I was invited to join in Nicolas team for the local pub quiz, (known as trivia quizzes here) where the only help I offered was (ironically) remembering Lewis Hamilton’s name but I enjoyed it thoroughly and had my first really Australian meal in the Parmigiana or Parmy as its fondly referred to. A sort of large findus crispy pancake, with more cheese on top and sat on a small mountain of chips with salad garnish. Pub food genius:
My next adventure with Nicola saw us on the City Cat, a catamaran service that carries passengers up and down the Brisbane river, from Bulimba to the South Bank for a shuffle about and lunch. I LOVE the City Cat! With a climate like this taking to the water to get from suburbs to the city seems like commuter heaven to me. (They can also go really fast and if you stand at the front it’s like being on a fair ride and you feel like even your sunglasses might be whooshed off!). We people watched, (which included spotting a man who looked incongruously like Father Christmas and a white Rastafarian garden gnome).We had a fine lunch and I apparently had the biggest pint in the world. Yes, the glass is bigger than my head.
Surfers Paradise
Now Nicola does have a husband (James), two teenage girls, a part time job and a Labrador so she very selfishly couldn’t spend every single day with me. And so it was I found myself on a rather exciting trip down to The Gold Coast. Brisbane is flanked by The Sunshine Coast to the north and The Gold Coast to the south. (It made me wonder what we would call our coasts at home? The Cloudy Coast, The ‘its looking a bit brighter over there’ Coast and The Fresh-air-is-good-for-you-now-do-you-want-the-cheese-and-pickle-or-the-shipphams-paste-Coast?)
The Gold Coast is a stretch of white sandy beach that runs from31km -70km (depending on what you’re reading) but is essentially miles of beautiful beach and blue surf that when you first glimpse it, almost takes your breath away. It is home to the wonderfully named Surfers Paradise and somewhere I felt immediately drawn to with my natural surfing ability and extreme sports passion.
The area used to be called Elston and was originally farm land until it was sold to Johann Meyer in the 1880s who opened the first Main Beach Hotel as a tourist destination. The name was changed however by the fantastically entrepreneurial Jim Cavill who in 1925 had the first Surfers Paradise Hotel built and then began lobbying to change the name of the town and so in 1933 it was renamed Surfers Paradise. It wasn’t Until the 1950s that the first high rise was built and a huge development boom took place seeing the whole area turn from sleepy coastal town to major tourist hot spot. In 1959 it was named The Gold Coast and this year it comes of age by hosting The 2018 Commonwealth Games.
I honestly thought I would hate the place but all my preconceived ideas of posing body beautifuls and testosterone induced machismo soon faded. The beach is just beautiful, the pounding waves majestic and soothing. The atmosphere very laid back with all sorts of bodies on show and every sort of person accepted. There are shops full of tat, cheap eats and sun tans everywhere but there are also smart shops, lovely sea front restaurants, families making sandcastles, kids paddling and all under the watchful eye of the lifeguards.
The life guarding presence is impressive. When I first started strolling down the prom I thought there must be a gymkana on because I could here shouting over a loud speaker except it wasn’t for the Brownies to meet in the tea tent it was to get young teenagers to swim between the flags. There was a helicopter occasionally sweeping the beach, stationed lookout towers, life boat dinghies and lifeguards at regular intervals along the stretch of sand. Here you can see me in my bikini as I sat and chatted to some of them:
Welllllll. Maybe not. But I was wearing flip flops and had no scarf on so a veritable summer outfit I’m sure you’ll agree annnnd I even paddled!
I had an unexpected fabulous day at Surfers Paradise which was the made truly brilliant when I went to buy myself an ice cream on the way home. Now I know I’ve addressed this particular Australian consumable before but I had no idea of the incredible range. And so it was I finished my day on the Gold Coast by enjoying my first Gaynetto, albeit sadly on my own!
Shag Rock
The journey to find Shag Rock began with me thrusting my phone in Nicolas face and saying ‘of course it’s a real name! It’s a real place! look it’s on google maps!’ Once the point was conceded and acknowledged it turned out shag rock was on her favourite isle; North Stradbrooke Island, or Straddie to the locals. In fact not only was there a shag rock but a shag lagoon! Double jeopardy I was quite excited.
One thing I’ve learnt though on my travels is you need to be organised. You need to book in advance. I missed out on trips to the reef because of cyclones, floods, bad weather and the fact I hadn’t booked in advance to get myself on a waiting list. (Although I managed once and it was cancelled due to bad weather)! So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found all snorkelling trips to shag rock were booked up. Mmmm, research further showed you could kayak round it, that sounded fun(!) until I read you had to be advanced or confident at sea kayaking mmmmmm couldn’t really pretend I was either and Nicola was from Sheffield, not known for its water sports so that was out.
Shag lagoon was promising, but only part of the island had roads, some parts had track, some of it was protected land. The 4WD excursions only went as far as brown lake (such an unenticing name?) you could hire bikes but the likelihood of there being any track as far as shag lagoon was not looking good. Maybe we could hire a boat to sail round shag rock, mmmmmm we needed a boat license. Maybe we could charter one? Mmmm if we had $1500 to burn. So it looked set to be a self propelled excursion onto the island to see if we could at least see the rock from Point Lookout. The odds seeemed very good, if like us, you studied the advanced ordnance survey map (as above). Excellent.
So with true generosity Nicola invited me to stay over at theirs the night as the ferry to the island was much nearer to them. After being spoilt with a sunset at wellington point, family supper, befriending Barclay (Berkeley?) the gorgeous Labrador and a fine nights sleep we set off for the Straddie Ferry terminal at Cleveland.
Once again I am stuck for superlatives for North Stradbrooke island. The sun was out, water calm we had a fine little 20 minute crossing passing other small uninhabited islands where yachts were moored up so people could fish or have picnics on the beach. It was very swallows and Amazon’s, gentle, blue sky, green islands, warm sun, a good day. We jumped on the one island bus, known as the Straddie Flyer’ and as it hurtled towards Point Lookout we could see why! After a coffee we began the Gorge walk, which is just that, around the gorges, well maintained but treacherously near the edge at times and about one zillion steps. The views however. . . Well the views:
Now after lots of gazing at turqoiuse sea, spotting a sea turtle and some dolphins we put our minds to the holy grail of Shag Rock and it’s possible location. (It might be important to point out here it was about 31C by now, nearly midday and we’d dragged arthritic knees up a lot of steps). I checked our map. Mmmm it should be there, I point out and we squint across the horizon. There is nothing, literally nothing of any shape, even a boat like, on the blue horizon. Gosh, am suddenly very glad we didn’t pretend we were advanced kayakers. Where is it??
Aha! Then suddenly like a small miraculous, (almost handmade and fashioned out of a bit of leaflet & a biro?) miracle of miracles we spot the sign! Thank goodness for Queensland Council sign management, it seems magnificent that all the tourist spots, however impenetrably faraway, or hard to find are thankfully clearly marked.
So you can imagine our surprise when around the next headland we saw another clearly marked Shag Rock. It is almost as if the authorities were confused as to the real location of said outpost, (or two crazed heat affected women had become slightly delirious with mirth and nonsense). So I leave it to you, dear reader, to have the final say on the real. . . Shag Rock.
I am glad to say after possible heat stroke we did manage to drag ourselves to a nearby eating establishment where standing next to a man ordering a watermelon spritzer Nicola managed to confuse the management by asking for ‘any beer on tap’. Ahhhh . . . You can take the girl out of Yorkshire but not Yorkshire out of the girl.
I was so proud.
There may be an ‘incidentally’ to add to this post as tomorrow we’re on a little trip to find The Death Star Canteen. May the forks be with us . . .
Very serious adventures.com 