Friday, August 3, 2012

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


We managed to crawl from the covers into an even colder morning than yesterday and across to the bus stop by 9.10 am. In keeping with public transport in so many places, the bus was late. We could not recall how much it had cost us to travel into the city from Tingelpa, however the $12.80 for the two of us one way did not surprise me. Chris on the other hand was quite appalled especially when he thought about how much a week’s travel for the two of us would cost. Alas, the flashing of his Seniors Card did nothing to change the law abiding bus-driver’s mind; it seems that the generous subsidies offered to the aged in the past have been erased by an austerity minded government, or rather, a shifting of the goal posts to those on government superannuation rather than the semi-old.

Our first stop on arriving in the metropolis was the Transport office where we found out about Go-cards, retired to a bench in the Queen Street Mall to crunch the numbers and then invest in our magic plastic cards which will require much exercise in the ensuing week to earn their keep.

We headed off on foot to the Parliament Buildings where we learned parliament is currently in recess and will be until we have moved on from Brisbane; a shame because the still relatively new government, which has an almost obscene majority, would have been interesting to watch in action. However we did join one of the free tours, joining about ten others and were taken through the lovely old building and into the representative chambers.

Unlike the federal parliament in Canberra and all the other state governments, Queensland is a one house parliament, or unicameral, operating much like the New Zealand parliament does. It wasn’t always like that. From 1860 through to 1922, the government operated under the two house system, the upper and lower. It was only after an unsuccessful referendum and a bit of skulduggery of increasing numbers in the house and shifting the balance of power that the abolition of the two house system was pushed through. This story reminded me of the way the New Zealand Labour government under Helen Clarke abolished appeals to the Privy Council in London and the foundation of the Supreme Court of New Zealand without seeking support of the people. Interestingly it was a Labour government in Queensland that made this massive change here.

The concept for the plans of the building was that it should reflect the openness of those in colonial India. In this it was very successful, the front of the building facing the north, shaded from the midday sun, and open to the breezes through large windows that have since been blocked up to accommodate modern air-conditioning and lighting levels for live television broadcast. The courtyard is open and bordered by lovely cane palms. One could imagine sitting here sipping gin and tonics, being waited upon by white turbaned servants in a Somerset Maughan scene, so long as you had your back to the much more modern high-rise annex. This newer part of the compound houses the library, a conference room, and many modest bedsitting rooms to accommodate those parliamentarians who come from so far afield.

As we were led through the parliament building, we passed a plethora of interesting interpretative panels, all of which I would have dearly loved to  stay and read, but alas we were drawn on and it seems that security is such that tourists such as us are not allowed to roam free, even for educational purposes.

From here we found our way further down river, crossing through the QUT (Queensland University of Technology) to the Botanic Gardens. We sat and ate our lunch watching hundreds of others jogging, walking or simply enjoying the lovely riverside park as we were. Lunch over, I was keen to see if the water dragons were still about, and so we crossed the length of the gardens, duly rewarded by a rather poor specimen lying in the sun on the edge of one of the ponds.

Outside the park gates we jumped on the free red bus and rode around to the Museum of Brisbane, currently and temporarily housed on the ground floor of a high-rise office building while its true home in the City Hall is being upgraded. Here we viewed two exhibitions; the first of artworks titled “Reveal”, mainly paintings, mainly of Brisbane matters and mainly by artists who live or lived in Queensland and all works which spend most of their lives normally buried in the city archives. The other exhibition, titled “Cabinet of Curiosities” is an eclectic collection of exactly that, curious objects, all well described by an accompanying booklet. We enjoyed our visit, albeit it short; it is not a place to hold one’s attention for too many hours.

We found our way to the central bus station, in the bowels of a shopping centre, just like a subway station, boarded the 220 bus and allowed ourselves to be alternatively entertained and annoyed by the passengers who stepped on and off the bus during the fifty minute trip home. School children, particularly boys, are especially irritating on buses.

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