Friday, August 10, 2012

10 August 2012 - Nestle Inn Tourist Village, Tingalpa, Brisbane


The last five days have rolled by, each one a pearler as far as the weather is concerned.

We spent Monday cleaning the caravan out, perhaps not as thoroughly as when we did it back in Ballarat, but still from top to bottom. As usual Chris took the lead role and I was once again reminded by his professional approach to the task that his trade background is a far better training ground for cleaners than pen pushing is. I am also reminded why he has always been so scathing of the inadequacies of every housekeeper we have ever employed; few could match his own standard.

All Chris’ zeal and vigour however proved disastrous as he dismantled the gas stove to shine until gleaming; the one electric element announced its displeasure at the action with a bang. After emptying the cupboard which houses the fuse box, he laboriously checked each one to no avail. In fact it seemed he had blown the entire caravan power source to smithereens and the solution was beyond the understanding of such mere mortals as us. So off to the office to ask for a contact number for an electrician sympathetic to the needs of such as us. On the way back, he noticed that the power box pole was on a rather strange lean. I assured him it had been like that when I plugged in last Thursday afternoon and also explained that I had played around finding an outlet that functioned successfully. So Chris just moved the plug to another outlet, et voila! Electricity. So much drama with such a simple fix.

We had decided we wanted to change the fluorescent bulbs in a couple of the ceiling lights so headed across to Wynnum to an Ideal Electrical outlet. They had nothing in stock, nor did any other stores close by, however directed us back to Tingalpa to the Jayco dealer, Brisbane Camperland. Contrary to what we had been told by the chap at Ideal Electrical, there are LED bulbs available that will fit into the rather strange caravan fittings, with a little adjustment. Chris was cautious in response and had the salesman take him through to the workshop to see one being installed. Buoyed by this demonstration, we headed to Super Cheap Auto and purchased a crimping tool so he could then become a fully equipped sparky.

And so when we finally tore ourselves away from the television on Tuesday morning, catching up on the overnight Olympic medal haul, Chris pulled one of the ceiling lights apart, removed the superfluous mechanism and installed the new bulb. Success! Now confident with his ability, he attacked the one electric element on the gas cooker which has been dodgy for some time. This turned out to be more of a mission than initially thought, although the actual repair was simply a matter of reinstating a nut that had shaken loose on the Australian roads. Without tiny childish fingers and a limited repertoire of tools, it took some perseverance, duly rewarded.

After lunch we set out for a drive to the Port of Brisbane, at the mouth of the Brisbane River. This area was formerly known as Fisherman Islands but has been hugely refashioned on reclaimed land. It is currently the third busiest port in Australia and the nation’s fastest growing container port.

Once upon a time all shipping was undertaken up river at South Bank. However as recently as 1976 it was decided to develop the area at the mouth of the river. A five kilometre causeway, two road bridges and a rail bridge to link the islands to the mainland. The port has subsequently grown over the intervening years and still is today with a further 230 hectare area known as the Future Port Expansion area gradually being filled over the next fifteen to twenty years with materials obtained from maintenance and capital dredging projects. And all the time with modern concerns around conservation and the fact that this whole surrounding marine area is a protected park, the Port of Brisbane is managing to successfully balance progress with minimising its ecological footprint.

We were too late to take the Tuesday tour around the port however enjoyed the Information Centre with the short videos and interpretative panels on offer. We also popped up to the seventh floor of the Port headquarters where one can stand out on the café balcony and look out over the port, the Moreton Bay Marine Park and back to the city.

From here we drove the relatively short distance down the coast to Wynnum, parked at Pandannus Beach and walked for several kilometres along the Wynnum Waterfront walk as far as Manly; a delightful walk in the sunshine enjoying the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach and views of the many islands out to sea. Most of the coastline from here up to the river entrance is lined with mangroves, however these give way to launching and swimming beaches once the built up area replaces the wilderness. We returned to Wynnum up over the hill from Manley, enjoying the walk through the residential area, the houses mainly of classic Queensland style and cane palms the principal garden border. The afternoon was getting on so we found the local supermarket, stocked up and returned to camp.

Sitting out under the awning with our late afternoon coffee, we watched the gardener rake up all the pine cones that have been lying about the camp, resembling a flock of hedgehogs grazing on the lawn. Some of the "hedgehogs" make quite a racket when they fall from their nests in the trees above the caravan.

We dined on roast kangaroo accompanied by roast potatoes, both sweet and plain, roast capsicums and onions, and boiled carrots and broccoli; all delicious and appropriate for the cool temperatures of the Queensland evening.

On Wednesday we took the bus into the city and spent several hours in the State Library. The first were spent in the Family History room battling with a micro-fiche reader still chasing great great great grandfather Thomas Ingram and his elusive first wife and child if they did indeed exist. My search was in vain but not yet to be abandoned; Chris managed to entertain himself with the newspaper while the superb staff in the library fell over backwards to assist me.

From here we retreated to other floors to visit a couple of exhibitions, both relating to Brisbane and the natural phenomenon of flood. The first documented the floods of the 19th and 20th centuries with a collection of sketches, paintings, letters, photos and all manner of records. It should never have been a surprise to see the Brisbane River rise to such horrendous levels because the city is after all, built on a massive flood plain. The floods of 1841, the three in 1893 and another in 1974 were far higher than that in 2011, however as the years have progressed, the population has grown and the city expanded so the damage has been no less.

The second exhibition will start its journey around the libraries of Queensland in the next couple of weeks, although in an abbreviated form. Films, photos, newsreels and a map of the river viewed with an iPad and appropriate app do not travel that well to outposts.

Neither exhibition kept our attention past lunch time, so after we had dined out on a bench in the bright warm sunshine while watching the city in action across the river, we returned to the museum viewed last year to see if there was anything new to catch our attention.

There was an interesting exhibition titled Dressed by the Best: Fashion, Glamour and Gwen Gillam celebrating a Brisbane woman who designed and manufactured fashion for the rich and mobile through the 1950s and beyond. Examples of her work hang on mannequins, some quite elegant, some reminiscent of clothes my mother sewed for me through the late 1960s and ‘70s and some that looked from this end of time, quite frankly drab. 

We wandered through other exhibits we had visited last year which now having travelled through many parts of Queensland and seen so much more than we had eighteen months ago, were so much more meaningful.


The next day we were back on the bus again, into the city and on the 227 bus which takes a more direct route into the city from Tingalpa, crossing north over the Storey Bridge. There we disembarked and walked to Fortitude Valley, or more particularly, Chinatown. It was only just after 10 am so we should not have been surprised that the Chinatown mall was almost deserted. 

We made our way to Brunswick Street Mall, a block away, hoping to find a bit more action. We had read descriptions of this mall and the area; stylish and busy being a couple of them. While busier than Chinatown, it was still relatively quiet. We shouted ourselves coffee at Maccas and sat at a counter facing the mall watching the passers-by, most who did nothing to lift our impressions of the area. We were soon joined by a woman older than us, who made herself at home beside us. She was grabbing a favourite breakfast bonus and coffee before proceeding on to her hairdresser. When she heard that we were on-the-road, she confessed that her husband would have loved to follow in our footsteps however she could never bring herself to it. Toilets were the problem, she said. We assured her that modern caravans such as ours were fully equipped with full bathrooms, toilets included, however I got the feeling that it was now too late for them. She was still an active lady in the community, working as a chaplain in a remand prison one day a week. Needless to say our conversation was lengthy and interesting and I would hazard a guess and suggest that she was more than a little late for her hair appointment.

Consulting the map, we decided to head up through the suburb as far as the Exhibition Grounds where the EKKA, aka the Royal Queensland Show, had just kicked off. EKKA is so typical of the way Australians manage to abbreviate so much of their vocabulary. Probably in today’s climate, abbreviations should not seem too unusual; we have become accustomed to OMG (Oh my God!), LOL (laugh out loud), C U L8R (see you later) and so on and so on. EKKA is somehow derived from the word “exhibition”, if you had not worked it out.

The show lasts ten days and is a big agriculture and pastoral show (in New Zealand we have A&P Shows) with all the side shows, fireworks, wild riding  and cake making competitions that one would normally expect. The amount of television advertising for the show has been incredible; there should be no excuse for ignorance.

The crowds were converging on the entrance and the roads were closed off to all but taxis and service vehicles. We walked against the tide and returned to Brunswick Street, walking down past the rail station, past some rather dodgy looking people, the sex shops, the strip joints, the peep shows, the secretarial schools, and headed across to the lovely Chinatown Mall which was now buzzing with lunchtime crowds. We wandered about looking for a Chinese Restaurant or kiosk that offered a smorgasbord style menu but found none. Nor did we find any back in the Brunswick Mall that appealed which was a shame because we had set off from camp with the intention of dining Chinese style in Chinatown.

Architecture in Chinatown
Despite the fact that midday had come and gone, we were not feeling so ravenous to settle for second best so we set off along Ann Street toward the city. The weather had remained fine and warm, in fact the temperature was up to 26 degrees however the sky was covered in wonderful tubular clouds announcing change to come. We walked on under that sky, on past lovely architecture, past lovely parks and paused at St John’s Cathedral which I had spotted from the bus some days before. We poked our nose in for a quick peek at this fabulous building and were promptly accosted by a lovely woman who apologised for the fact that we had missed the tour and then gave us a full personal resume.

St John's Cathedral
Building of this Anglican Cathedral, designed by John Loughborough Pearson, was commenced in 1906, the first stage completed five years later, the second stage 1964 – 1968 and then the last undertaken in 1989 completed as recently as 2009. I was particularly impressed with this very beautiful, if simple building, given that the design is a mixture  of French and English Victorian Gothic Revival styles, something you would expect to have been no later than the 19th century. Apparently the funding for the last stage came from State and Federal sources, matching dollar for dollar with church monies raised. This did not impress me particularly as I wondered how the Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Moslems or atheists might have felt about this use of taxpayer funds; however I was pleased to learn that the building is used for secular activities as well as Anglican ritual. Speaking of which, ritual, that is, I was surprised to see the number of ritualistic vessels and drapes positioned about in the three areas of service within the cathedral. Chris did remind me that this was High Anglican which is not really too different from Catholic.

After due examination, we glanced quickly at St Martin’s House next door, which served as a private hospital until 1971. It was built as a memorial to those killed in World War I, run by Anglican nuns and served Brisbane for fifty years, providing a high standard of care to private patients for a fee and returned servicemen and women for free.

Prior to its closure there was apparently considerable controversy. The people of Brisbane did not wish to lose the hospital but the nuns had come to the end of their tether and the facilities and equipment were well past their use by date. The nuns eventually walked out, off to their next calling, to teach children elsewhere, and so that was that. This building is also quite lovely and today serves as administrative offices for the cathedral.

By the time we reached the centre of the city, every office worker was either sitting about in the park areas or the restaurants, or filling the food halls. We joined the latter and did, in the end, enjoy a dish of delicious Chinese coconut chicken, fresh vegetables and rice. Not quite how we had imagined our lunch but still worth every cent.

Feeling quite full, it was time for further exercise so we set off to visit the Commissariat Store in William Street, built by convicts in 1829 and as such is the oldest building intact in Brisbane. Today the structure is the home of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, houses an excellent model display of the original settlement of Moreton Bay and serves as an excellent museum of Brisbane.

Here we learned that although Joseph Banks on Cook’s voyage in 1770 noticed the muddiness of the waters suggesting a large river might enter the sea somewhere near, it was not until 1823 that the explorer Oxley bothered to check the lay of the land. He rushed back to Sydney to report that Moreton Bay would be just the place to move the recidivist convicts, to a place where they could be punished well away from free settlors, in the same way that Port Macquarie was chosen.  In 1824 the first batch of convicts arrived and they kept on coming right through to 1839. The third Commandant of the penal colony, Captain Patrick Logan, took over in 1826 and during his four year reign until his mysterious murderous end in 1830, was credited with the building of the settlement and establishing a successful outpost, the foundations of Brisbane. He has also gone down in the annuls of history as an exacting and ruthless commandant, but then I suppose he was just doing his job, and if all prisons were run in that way today, there would not be too many prisoners.

We learned so much more but this can all be found on the internet or by calling in yourself at the Commissariat Store Museum. We left as a bus load of oldies arrived, crowding this rather intimate and excellent storehouse.

This morning was spent in a relaxed fashion reading the newspaper and taking the opportunity to start reading Middlemarch, which already after just over fifty pages is shaping up to be all as promised.


Part way through the course of the morning, our attention was diverted to removal activity on the driveway close by. The park is currently under redevelopment, like so many around the country, being converted to a retirement village. The cabins in the front section of the park are being relocated to the rear of the park where most of the permanent tenants live. Brand new homes selling from about $250,000 will take their place and in a year or so, there is unlikely to be space for the likes of us. The cabin was gingerly edged between a decapitated palm tree and the sign board structure minus the sign board, inch by inch and on up into the area beyond the office and workshops. The operations manager engaged with us in lengthy conversation explaining that the owners are about to buy their sixth caravan park, and all will follow this planned transformation. This very personable chap is likely to have his hands full for a while, and we did get the impression that he had a financial interest in the matter apart from any salary he may be on.

After lunch we set off for a drive, further down Brisbane’s east coast, starting with Wellington Point, the narrow spit of land extending north on the eastern side of Waterloo Bay. We sat in the vehicle for some time watching the wind surfers and Kite sufers skating across the top of the white horses in the brisk breeze. Across the bay in the distance we could see the shores at Manley and Wynnum where we had been earlier in the week.

From here we drove on south across flat scrubby land to Cleveland, descending from the low hills of Ormiston overlooking the residential canals of Raby Bay. We drove to the end of Cleveland Point and looked out across toward North Stradbroke Island. Returning along this second spit, Chris spotted a Sunmaid yacht for sale and could not resist stopping to have a look. I have mentioned before how competent Chris is at window shopping, and so he has no qualms about examining any wares (or yachts) for sale with no intention of actually buying. The owner of the boat however thought he was on to something and showed Chris all over the boat, bow to stern, and down in the bowels of the boat, sure there was a sale to be made. Chris finally dragged himself away with glowing reports of the boat and the asking price.

We continued south to Victoria Point and out to the reserve at the end, examined the ferry terminal for Coochiemudlo Island or Coochie as it is affectionately known by the locals. We agreed that these eastern coast suburbs were just lovely and appealed to us even more than those on the Sunshine Coast and certainly those on the Gold Coast. These are for real people.

It was a fairly straight run back across the lowlands of south east Brisbane to camp.

On the television news tonight, we learned that the wind so welcome to those in Waterloo Bay today, has been very problematic for those further inland. The first of the grass fires have begun and the season is predicted to be a busy one for the fire-fighters. We will have to be careful where we camp as the year progresses.

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