Going for a walk around Brisbane this morning, the high rises certainly look less appealing in the daylight. However, there is a walkway over the river, and cities never look all bad from a river.
In fact there is an older city hidden among the towering offices and apartments. These are mainly the Victorian age government buildings, though some of these are now in commercial use, like a plush hotel that's opposite the State Parliament and a casino next door.
We decide to do a a tour of the parliament. Though this provides me, and Rohan & Janaya for that matter, some historical insight into Queensland, the tour is rushed. It is only us three plus another girl on the tour, but the guide doesn't even give us time to read the information placards that line the hallways. I think they are more used to taking rowdy school children on these tours.
The security seems pretty lax. When I entered the building going through the metal detector, it beeps, but the security guard tells me it is probably just that I have a metal strip in my shoes and she waves me through. The guide tells us we are allowed to take pictures as long as there are no people in the pictures, 'especially children'. This means that we can't take pictures in the commons chamber, as it is full of children merrily taking pictures of each other sitting on the parliamentary benches. So, it would have been quite easy to carry a weapon in here, but if I was a pedophile with a fetish for children pretending to have legislative powers, then I would have been nabbed. This leads to me reflect that what was the rule of law has been substituted by the rule of stupid rules.
We do get to take pictures of the second chamber, the Queensland version of the House of Lords. There are no children here and, the legislative chamber having been abolished in 1922, no legislators either. It looks more like a dining hall in a stately home with immaculately polished tables and elegantly embroidered sofas on the viewing balcony.
Emerging from the tour and walking back to the centre of the city, every other person we pass is eating a chocolate ice cream bar. We discover a line of people outside the Victorian era Town Hall being handed Magnum bars by women dressed in Lara Croft garb and some men in black militia uniforms. There is also a giant bunny going along the queue collecting money for charity.
After another huge lunch at Rohan's mum's, we set off back south to collect Janaya's car at Rod's, after which Janaya and I will travel down to her father's farm in Coff's Harbour, about a third of the way to Sydney, where I will be heading off to tomorrow.
We stop on the way at Wellington Point to the southeast of Brisbane. Exposed to the open sea, this is a kite surfers haven, but is also popular with dog walkers who go out to a small island that can be reached via a sand isthmus that is walkable at low tide.
It will take four hours to drive to Coff's Harbour, and I am a little concerned that Janaya is too tired to drive all that way. However, with a V energy drink and with only a quick stop for fish'n'chips, she drives the whole way, even taking me on a quick driving tour of Coff's when we get there despite the fact that I am now exhausted and can't see anything she is commentating on as it is 10:30 at night.
By the time we have got to the farm, Janaya's dad has laid a bed out for me in the living room. Although the officiousness that has permeated some of Australian culture has taken me aback, it is a big and beautiful country and I have to say that the people are disarmingly hospitable, excepting the odd pub bouncer in Sydney.
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