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The folks at the George were so kind as to let us keep our fully loaded bikes in their luggage storage room (along with a load of other baggage) which freed us to go exploring Brisbane on foot. Which we did. Across the bus/bike/ped bridge to South Brisbane where the Armed Services had finished up their race and an Army band was still rockin’ the crowd. Plus, they were giving away leftover fruit and gummy worms, so we stocked up on bananas, apples, oranges and gummies.
After the band stopped, we walked back over to Uptown and listened to a Latin Jazz band in the Queen St. mall — a great space that’s been completely converted from street to a pedestrian plaza. Lots of folks of all ages out, too, and all the shops were open.
We went back to the George and retrieved our bikes and headed to Clayfield and our host of the next couple of days, Natalie. Natalie is the cousin of Rebecca who is the friend of Lynn in State College who we were originally going to stay with, but her father passed about a week before we were due in Brisbane and she made arrangements for us to stay with Natalie. Natalie couldn’t have been more gracious and we got there about 1:45, unloaded our stuff, chatted for a while, and then went on a cycling tour of Brisbane. Natalie gave us better directions into town than the ones we followed to her place which included a few steep hills.
Our plan was to check out the West End of South Brisbane, but it was waterlocked, though we later (too late for us) found out there are water “taxis” run by the city – and for the same 50 cent fare as all the other public transit. We did see a bit of the West End, but mostly from the other side of the river as we made our way back. Brisbane has an amazing cycling network with paths almost everywhere, including right along the riverfront. Really pleasant.
Getting back, the map put us on a shorter route to Natalie’s house, but it turned out to be more hill climbing — and in the dark now. We made it back to Natalie’s and she had made dinner and we brought out our wine and had a nice evening getting to know her. Sometime during the day, we had set up a trip out to Moreton Island on Monday for a snorkeling/kayaking/resorting trip complete with a ferry ride out and back. Natalie offered to drive us to the ferry dock as it wasn’t a big detour from her commute into Uptown. More about that all tomorrow — time to get some rest for our big resort day tomorrow.
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