Our flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Brisbane took 3 hours and 20 minutes. Gavin Bretzke and Cindy picked us up at the airport and dropped me off at Alan's workshop. That evening, we had pizza and caught up on things. I hadn't seen them for 3 years. The next day, Cindy took us into Brisbane City on the train. We looked around Queen Street Mall, Meyers store, and saw a movie called, "Scream", at Hoyts theater. Donna got kissed by a mime in the mall. After the movie we walked to South Bank park, a popular swimming area and park near the city center. We went swimming at the man-made lagoon. It was so humid and hot, in order to sleep I had to take a cold water shower to cool down. We relaxed for a couple days. We had dinner with Darryn Bretzke and Rachael. I spent some time helping out at Alan's workshop, and fixed a universal joint.
We took the train to the city and researched bus fares to Sydney and Cairns. We split up in town and I went to New Farm, the suburb I lived in when I was going to school at QUT during 1993. The old Queenslander house I lived in was still there on Lloyd Street. I found an old neighbor named, Hector, at the local pub and visited with him. He was a war veteran that was in Nagasaki after the bombing. He told me about the 2 open heart surgeries and 9 bypasses he has had. Later I caught the train and met up with Donna and Cindy at South Banks where we looked around the street markets. The next day we hung out in Cleveland and met up with Darryn and went to the movies with some of his friends. Donna and I saw "Preachers Wife", while the others saw "Shine".
Alan, Faye, Gavin, Donna, and I went to Mt. Cootha Planetarium and botanical gardens. We had lunch at the Gardens Cafe and then saw a show in the planetarium about comets. Then we took a walk through the gardens and drove to the lookout for coffee. It had a great view of Brisbane. On the way back we drove by the XXXX brewery and crossed the Story bridge. That evening we looked through photos of Alan and Faye's trip to visit the U.S.A. in 1994. The next day we checked our email at the library in Cleveland and looked around town.
Donna and I ran to the train and then to Miramar boat. Got there just in time for departure. It
was a nice trip up the Brisbane river. We passed a lot of
fruit bats and heard a commentary about the 1974 flood. Our
boat was taking us to Lone Pine Sanctuary.
First opened in 1927, Lone Pine Sanctuary is the first and largest Koala Sanctuary in the world. We spent the day seeing all the different animals of Australia. We fed kangaroos, held a koala in our arms, saw 2 emus chasing each other, and heard dingos howling. We saw Tasmanian devils, wombats, dingoes, reptiles and many more of animals in the 20 hectares (50 acres) of natural settings. One of the strangest animals was the Tawny Frogmouth.
The next day I drove into the city and visited with some college friends from QUT. I bought some of my favorite pizza from Angelo's in New Farm to bring back for dinner at the Bretzke's house.
Worked at Alan's shop located at 42 Shore Street, Cleveland, QLD Australia. His shop offers general automotive service. He helped me get my Ford Falcon road worthy when I bought it back in 1993 for $400.
Cleveland was almost chosen as the principal port but because of the large mud flats at low tide Brisbane was chosen. Cleveland remained a quiet small town to which people come for a restful holiday.
Historic buildings in Cleveland include the Grand View Hotel (1851), Queensland's oldest licensed hotel, the locals call it the G.V., the old courthouse (1853), now a restaurant, and Cleveland Lighthouse (1847-64).
