Brisbane

Day 32 - Brisbane

Brisbane

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

We left our cabin in Surfer''s Paradise just after 10, but before heading for Brisbane we stopped at the Post Office to arrange to pay my speeding ticket (boo hoo). I had to buy a money order and post it to them. The weather wasn't good, warm but rainy. It had been pouring with rain all night. After parting with my hard-earned, we drove up to Brisbane, it's about 40 mins north of the Gold Coast. We had planned a day of reminiscing and the girls were very patient. First we tracked down Storey Bridge which you would have thought would be easy to find but those tricky Aussies had hidden it and it took ages to locate it. Brisbane has changed quite a lot since we were here 20 yrs ago and there are loads of over passes and bridges we didn't know about. In fact we had to drop in to McWifi to enter our destinations into the iPad sat nav (we uploaded the blog pages at the same time). We had just about given up when it appeared in front of us and we ended up driving over it three times. We stopped near the bridge and walked down the waterfront to where Wendy and I occasionally used to go for coffee on a Sunday morning.

After that we headed for The Royal Brisbane Hospital and parked just outside the car park we used to use every day. We then walked round the hospital grounds videoing and thinking that security would come and chuck us off any time, but they didn't. Not surprisingly the hospital has changed a lot and lots of the buildings we knew had been flattened and re-built. There is a nursing museum which is open on Tuesdays from 11 to 2 but we had just missed it. The person in charge was still there but didn't have any spare time to let us look round but she did take our address and said she would post some info to us.

From there we moved on to Riverton Street in Clayfield and had a good look round the block of flats at no. 84. We used to live in flat 6. Luckily no-one called the police as we nosed round. I had a look through one of the windows and I think even the furniture is the same. It looked exactly the same as it did 21 yrs ago, only 21 yrs older. Even the washing line was the same. I once left my clothes hanging out overnight and in the morning they had been nicked...even my pants!

After that we had a drive down Sandgate Rd and saw the shopping mall we used to use and saw the convenience store (7/11 store) which had an armed robbery while I was doing some shopping in it when we were here last (I didn't know it had happened as I was in the back of the shop at the time, I only found out there had been a robbery because the cashier didn't nave any change).

We then found a motel and got changed and went out for our last dinner here in Australia. We went to The Breakfast Creek Hotel, which is a restaurant we remember well. You choose your steak and they cook it for you - very nice. I had the rib eye, Anna had a petite rib eye, Jess and Lizzi had a Mignon steak (wrapped in bacon) and Wendy had a nice rump (actually she had rib fillet but that wouldn't have been funny). After that we went into central Brisbane to a 24hr pancake house (Pancake Manor) for pudding. Anna had Blueberry Heaven, Jess had Strawberry Patch, Lizzi (surprise surprise) had Chocolate Jewels and Wendy had a nice rump (ha ha, actually we shared a Bananarama pancake with butterscotch sauce).

The girls are in bed now and Wendy is saying goodbye to Cathy on the phone. It is sad that we are leaving tomorrow but we have all said that we have had a great holiday and are looking forward to seeing our family, friends and dog but not necessarily in that order! (only joking.....I forgot the rabbit).

I'm off to bed now but keep following the blog as I'll be blogging until we get home on Thursday. In fact, it's become such a habit that I might just keep going!!

	Storey Bridge [Map]		Down memory lane [Map]
	Riverton Street [Map]		6/84 Riverton Street [Map]
	Breakfast Creek Hotel [Map]		Brekky Creek Steaks [Map]
	Placing order [Map]		Bananarama Pancakes [Map]
	Chocolate Jewels [Map]		Strawberry Patch [Map]
	Blueberry Heaven [Map]

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