Brisbane has grown up

Living in Brisbane back in the 80's and early 90's, I always thought of it as a big country town - with all that is good and bad about that.  On the plus side was a certain relaxed friendliness to the place.  On the other side, there was a slowness that felt like backwardness compared to the liveliness of Sydney or Melbourne. 

Certainly there was a coming of age with World Expo 1988 when the city put on an international event that was a huge success by any measure.  It also spurred the concept of all-night trading for select retail outlets, emergence of a variety of dining options (leveraging the incredible year-round climate for outdoor dining) and gentrification of the inner city.
This time around, Brisbane feels more grown up.  The favorable aspects of being a big country town have been retained by effective use of public space.  There seems to be more trees, well kept parks and incredible transformations of public spaces for active enjoyment.  As an example, we spent a morning near downtown Brisbane - across at Southbank where Expo '88 was housed for 6 months - to enjoy swimming in a public pool converted into a beach-like setting with sand and lifeguards.  Except for parking it was all free to the public. The city has created a wonderful asset.  And the overall area has been embellished with a series of walking, jogging and biking paths to enhance accessibility and leverage the incredible outdoor lifestyle that the climate affords Brisbane.
This time around it feels like Brisbane has figured out what it wants to be when it grows up - and is busily creating that unique identity as part of the process while adopting great features of other fine cities.

Where'd Nov 25th go?

Somewhere in the dark of night, cruising at 38,000 feet over the vastness of the Pacific ocean, we lost Nov 25th.

We left Seattle early Thursday evening (Thanksgiving) getting to LA in plenty of time for our 11pm departure to Australia. Feeling sluggish from the desire to sleep but wide-eyed for the adventure in front of us, we finally boarded for our 14-hour flight to Brisbane. The girls locked into their entertainment consoles with multiple movie channels with viewing control from their seats. They didn't contemplate sleep until the little wee hours. When it came time to crash, we were able to squeeze the girls into a mostly outstretched position across 3 seats for a solid 5-6 hours each of horizontal sleep.

Our arrival in Australia was marked with rapid passage through Australia customs and immigration and out into the public waiting area and a balmy 80F day where our friend Sean awaited ready to whisk us home to his place. It was just 8:30am in the morning, but on the morning of Nov 26th. We apparently lost Nov 25th.

Less than 1 week to departure

Less than 1 week to departure means this is a working weekend.  Denise has a very long “Honey Do” list for Doug.  And Doug has work commitments that need to be addressed before the last 3 work days next week. 

 

Family reunion things for the trip are getting really interesting.  Doug’s oldest brother, Ken, is able to make the family reunion planned in Opononi, New Zealand.  He’ll be flying in from the Philippines where he now lives.  The last time all the brothers – Peter, Doug & Ken – were together was January 1995 in Western Australia. 

 

Rose (Jnr) and Ruth have never met Ken.  And, although Rose has met Peter, she was a 2 year old at the time and remembers very little.  The reunion is planned over the week of Christmas.  We are planning to go to the local Hotel for Xmas Lunch.  We will have our meal in, or near, the “Bryers Room” – such is the long heritage of the Bryers family in the Hokianga, where Opononi is a small village in the area.