Brisbane!!!

  Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

We arrived at Brisbane around 12:30 in the afternoon and were greeted by the Air Safaris International owner and tour guide Clare McEwan from Toronto Canada.  He helped us with our luggage and had us driven to our hotel on South Bank Brisbane, Rydges.   Our room wasn't quite ready so Clare took us for a pint and a quick tour of the resort area that occupies the south shore of the Brisbane River.  The hotel was across the street from the river walk and there was a labor day celebration going on.

After the quick tour we returned to the hotel and were happily informed our room had been upgraded to a luxury suite.  Oh joy separate rooms!!!  Deke called to inform us he would not be joining us this afternoon but tomorrow to show us around Brisbane.  We took the opportunity of the reprieve from Deke to relax, organize our gear, gather our dry cleaning and enjoy the view from our top floor balcony.
That evening we dined at a restaurant on the South Bank river walk that we had seen during the tour from Clare.  It was a steak joint and we decided that the beef in Australia is tougher then its American cousin.  We returned to the hotel and caught up on email, reading and the like.  Outside we just missed a tremendous fireworks display for Labor Day which was being celebrated.

The next morning Deke sent us a text saying he would not be joining us at all due to ongoing negotiations for a potential job.  Dad decided he would take the opportunity to search for some Letter Boxes in the area. http://www.letterboxing.org/  There was one very close to the hotel in the middle of the river walk.  After a quick search we determined it was MIA.   The next one was across the river in a park called Roma St. Park.  After some misdirection we finally found the park behind a train station and amongst some luxury apartments.  The box was easily found and we hurried to accomplish the mission before it got too crowded. The mission of course is to record the stamp found in the box in your journal and leave a print of your stamp in their journal in the box.  You then return the box undetected so that it will not be stolen by people who either don't know better or are being malicious.
We then had lunch and decided to take a tour of the Brisbane River on the River Taxi.  These are high speed catamaran river ferries which do about 20 knots.  The tour took about 2 1/2 hours and travels the length of the city on the river that bisects it with the same name.  The sights were incredible and we had a great time.

After the river ride we rested before dinner and ate at the hotel so we could retire early in preparation for meeting the rest of our tour group tomorrow over breakfast at 7:30 am.