Oct 2006

From 8 to 22 degrees centigrade really isn’t that much. In fact in Australia, most of the weather forecasts have about that much disparity between what they think the high temperature might be for the next day in any given town or city. But I’ll bitch about the failings of Australian broadcasting later on. To stay on point, 22 degrees felt like an oven after the Britain-esque Kiwi weather we had endured over the previous month.

After leaving the airport we got on a suburban train to Roma Street where the good folk at our hostel were to pick us up. The journey was interesting in that everybody seemed to know everybody else. It was like Cheers on rails, minus the wisecracking psychiatrist. And the beer. With us and our backpacks no doubt stealing some local’s regular seat, we felt a little out of place and intimidated… a little different to the LA - I’m gonna get shot - subway intimidation we experienced some months before. But we still received some discerning looks from the locals who were probably sick to death of backpackers running amok in their city. But we weren’t backpackers. I consider myself to be a traveller who happens to carry his stuff in a backpack because a suitcase would be stupidly impractical. So there.

The hostel was pretty good, except for our room being almost directly above the bar and next to the beer garden….and so inevitably a whole bunch of considerate guys and gals who adhered strictly to the “no loud noise after 11pm” rule. An interesting decree, given that the bar and its absurdly loud MC would keep the party going well into the early hours. I know I sound like Victor Meldrew when I make comments like this, but there really is a time and a place for it. The place shouldn’t be right next to people’s rooms if the time is after their official no-noise hour!

Brisbane itself is a city of many food courts. There’s about 3 very large shopping centres, each with eateries and food vendors coming out of their bottoms. On top of that, there seemed to be other random food courts underneath office buildings, car parks, train stations, brothels and crack houses. Okay, so not in the crack houses, but the point is there are at lot! Still, as is always the case, we struggled to find something that we really wanted to eat. It’s the indecisive person’s nightmare…and we are some of the most indecisive people you’ll ever meet! But one evening we finally settled on some Portuguese chicken outlet that wasn’t Nandos. We had to eat quickly as our showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was starting soon, and of course Kate would be devastated if she missed the trailers, or even worse, any Jack Davenport screen time. We should have taken our time. The food was good and the movie, well, wasn’t. Nor was Birch, Carol and Coyle’s presentation. If anyone ever gets the chance to be a projectionist, just bear in mind you’ll never be able to watch a movie at the cinema without critically analysing the work of your counterparts. In Australia their pre-feature programme is annoyingly different to the UK. They intersperse ads and trailers, making it really difficult for those of us who try to arrive at precisely the moment the former finishes and the latter begins. So, we had to sit through the dreadful ‘Fair Dinkum Sheds’, dreary ‘G’day Mate Sunbeds’ and the quite frankly shit Bonza Swimming Pool commercials to see any of the latest movie previews. Annoying! Anyway, I digress once more, the point was that our cinema experience wasn’t the best. We love UCI Norwich, and to a lesser extent, Odeon Leeds/Bradford (No offence guys, but UCI will always be my spiritual cinema home!)

Other points of interest in Brisbane included the Roma Street Park. Apparently the first, second or third (can’t quite remember which) largest parkland within a city in the Southern Hemisphere. I would hazard a guess that a trillion European and North American cities’ parks would be far bigger, but that’s not to say it wasn’t impressive. As we’ve since discovered to be common a fixture in Australian public places, there was a large barbeque area where mainly Koreans and Japanese people, (with a smattering a Caucasians) hung out and consumed vast quantities of greasy food. A great idea, but I wouldn’t be too trusting of the cleanliness of such appliances - I’d basically take a Fair Dinkum shedload of sanitizer and cleaning utensils, and spend a good few hours washing it down… if you’re a paranoid clean-freak such as myself. But besides the free cooking facilities, there’s a vast amount of open space for picnickers, frisby players and agoraphobics to mad. Also within the confines of the park are the Botanic Gardens which were actually quite interesting - there was also some claim to fame about being the Xth best/biggest/nicest-smelling/prettiest gardens in the Southern Hemisphere too (I really should do some research!). It was big, smelt nice and looked very pretty.
One other interesting feature of the Roma Street Park is the set of modern apartment buildings that overlook it and their corresponding network of car parks laying beneath. We managed to spent about 25 minutes taking a ‘shortcut’ to the street about 15 metres below and 10 metres dead ahead. Without doubt this was the Southern Hemisphere’s number one most annoying car park. We kept coming across locked exit doors, gated off areas, and lifts that wouldn’t go to the ground level. Eventually we managed to sneak down the ‘cars only’ ramp only to find the entrance to be blocked off with a heavy security gate. As we were about to scream for help, one of the residents (who eyeballed us like we were fugitives on the FBI’s Most Wanted list) pulled out of his parking bay and opened the gate. He drove through quickly (probably to inform the feds of our current whereabouts) and the gate started to close immediately; it was one of those that rolled down from the ceiling. So, seeing our only opportunity for escape, in true Indiana Jones style, we crept under the descending metal screen that threatened to entomb us in the unearthly and vast car park-labyrinth of death. Of course I had to wait an extra ten seconds so it was necessary to duck a little bit to get under it. Daring huh? Oh yeah!

Anyway, that was just about all we did in Brisbane. Actually its not, but the rest of it is relatively boring. The story gets interesting as we leave Queensland and head south to Sydney on the overnight train. Stay tuned for stories of drunken crazy ladies, stupid town names, and red light districts! Oh, and for the slagging off of Australian TV!

Andrew.