Love from Grom and Debs xxx
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Brisvegas
For the last few weeks we have been settling in to the Brisvegas lifestyle. Staying in one place will never be as good as travelling, but we have managed to fit in some fun times along the way.
Not long after our last blog post our friends Bobbie and Stuart, the fellow-Brightonians who we met back in Canada, came to stay with us. They are travelling around Oz in a camper van which they parked outside our house for a week. The weekend they arrived we went to meet them in a town called Surfer's Paradise along with our friend Paul and a Chilean girl called Merasol who he works with. Disappointingly, Surfer's Paradise turned out to be nothing but a beach and some high-rise hotels, and when it rained in the afternoon there was nothing for us to do except go to the pub. Luckily it happened to be happy hour so we all spent the rest of the day getting so smashed that no one could remember the journey back to Brisbane.
The next weekend the four of us drove up Mount Coot-tha in Bobbie & Stuart's campervan, where we had a bbq and got some great views over Brisbane. On the Sunday we went to the Bowls Club for an afternoon of barefoot bowls - all that practice playing petanque in Brighton has finally come in useful! We also drank lots of dangerously alcoholic ginger beer, and lowered the previously refined tone of the bowls club by several notches.
Over the last few weeks the weather has been getting really hot, and in Brisbane hot weather also means big thunderstorms. A few weeks ago a really bad storm hit the next suburb to ours (the worst storm in 25 years, apparently), roofs were being ripped off houses and people lost everything to the floods. We got off quite lightly with just a little bit of flooding and a visit from a giant spider that took refuge under our front porch.
The beginning of summer also marks the end of the Australian school year. Coastal towns are invaded by a swarm of 'schoolies' – teenagers who have just finished school celebrating in time-honoured fashion by drinking alcopops until they throw up. The university year has also finished, and after finishing his exams our friend James has gone travelling to Africa for the summer break. The upside of this for us is that we have moved into his room in a lovely big old Queenslander house. So now we have a garden with a BBQ, a flatscreen TV and a lovely flatmate called Ellie whose band have just found out are going to play at Big Day Out (hooray, Ellie!).
Last weekend we decided to get out of Brisbane for a few days, and five of us (us, Graeme's sort-of cousin Adam, Paul and his sister Leanne) hired a 4wd and went to North Stradbroke Island (aka Straddie). On our first day we stayed in a campsite next to the sea and tried our hand at bodyboarding; the second day we took turns at fanging (driving really fast) along the beach, went for a swim in Blue Lake, then found ourselves a free campsite which was completely deserted except for a few kangaroos and lots of insects. Debbie had a big shock when she shone her torch at her glass of wine and saw a giant spider swimming around in it. It could have been much worse though - if we had been drinking red wine, she probably would have swallowed it whole.
Now we are just chilling out in our new house and looking forward to to a hot and sunny xmas. We hope you lot are all having fun and enjoying the winter. Brr!
Not long after our last blog post our friends Bobbie and Stuart, the fellow-Brightonians who we met back in Canada, came to stay with us. They are travelling around Oz in a camper van which they parked outside our house for a week. The weekend they arrived we went to meet them in a town called Surfer's Paradise along with our friend Paul and a Chilean girl called Merasol who he works with. Disappointingly, Surfer's Paradise turned out to be nothing but a beach and some high-rise hotels, and when it rained in the afternoon there was nothing for us to do except go to the pub. Luckily it happened to be happy hour so we all spent the rest of the day getting so smashed that no one could remember the journey back to Brisbane.
The next weekend the four of us drove up Mount Coot-tha in Bobbie & Stuart's campervan, where we had a bbq and got some great views over Brisbane. On the Sunday we went to the Bowls Club for an afternoon of barefoot bowls - all that practice playing petanque in Brighton has finally come in useful! We also drank lots of dangerously alcoholic ginger beer, and lowered the previously refined tone of the bowls club by several notches.
Over the last few weeks the weather has been getting really hot, and in Brisbane hot weather also means big thunderstorms. A few weeks ago a really bad storm hit the next suburb to ours (the worst storm in 25 years, apparently), roofs were being ripped off houses and people lost everything to the floods. We got off quite lightly with just a little bit of flooding and a visit from a giant spider that took refuge under our front porch.
The beginning of summer also marks the end of the Australian school year. Coastal towns are invaded by a swarm of 'schoolies' – teenagers who have just finished school celebrating in time-honoured fashion by drinking alcopops until they throw up. The university year has also finished, and after finishing his exams our friend James has gone travelling to Africa for the summer break. The upside of this for us is that we have moved into his room in a lovely big old Queenslander house. So now we have a garden with a BBQ, a flatscreen TV and a lovely flatmate called Ellie whose band have just found out are going to play at Big Day Out (hooray, Ellie!).
Last weekend we decided to get out of Brisbane for a few days, and five of us (us, Graeme's sort-of cousin Adam, Paul and his sister Leanne) hired a 4wd and went to North Stradbroke Island (aka Straddie). On our first day we stayed in a campsite next to the sea and tried our hand at bodyboarding; the second day we took turns at fanging (driving really fast) along the beach, went for a swim in Blue Lake, then found ourselves a free campsite which was completely deserted except for a few kangaroos and lots of insects. Debbie had a big shock when she shone her torch at her glass of wine and saw a giant spider swimming around in it. It could have been much worse though - if we had been drinking red wine, she probably would have swallowed it whole.
Now we are just chilling out in our new house and looking forward to to a hot and sunny xmas. We hope you lot are all having fun and enjoying the winter. Brr!
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