Back to Brisbane

First off, thank you for the birthday wishes from everyone. The cards are still trickling through, and I did have a very nice day, thank you very much.

Also, an update on the spider situation on my floor – there are now at least two, possibly three well sized spiders. One of them came perilously close to my room, but has since moved away down the corridor. I’m also fairly sure that one of them has grown significantly in size, but that could just be the way he was stood. If my suspicion is right that it’s from the Huntsman family, this carries the two advantages that they don’t spin webs, and aren’t poisonous (though their bites do still hurt!)

Having spend last weekend in Brisbane, I’ve also noticed that Canberra spiders seem somewhat smaller, which is great news! Better than the football result. As mentioned last time, I booked up my trip to Brisbane for the A-League Grand Final, the trophy that everyone wants to win. Flying up on the Saturday morning, I was far more awake this time, and got to take a good look at the recovery work in the city. It’s almost back to normal, but there are still a few telltale signs. Some cafes and restaurants are still undergoing refits, some riverside walkways are closed, the inland beach area is closed while it’s being cleaned, and more than one of the CityCat docking points look like this;

Needless to say, Garden Point is not currently in use.

Another peculiarity of Brisbane is that in an attempt to prevent grafitti, they asked local artists to cover the electricity boxes around town with interesting displays. If you head to my photobucket, you can see what they’ve come up with. My personal favourite is this one. As I have a new camera (a proper one!), I’ve been practicing using it, so took as many photos of these boxes as I could. Thank you to Uncle David, who provided some memory cards for it!

As the day wore on, I gradually headed back towards my hostel, going via a local park to take in the local plant and wildlife. I have to say that while I am a fan of lizards, I’m less of a fan of this;

You might need to click it to see the true scale of that. Three massive terrifying spiders, eating insects bigger than any other insect I’ve seen in Australia. And they were everywhere!

When Sunday rolled round, I was delighted to head back to the Suncorp Stadium, conveniently close to my hostel to take in a thrilling match. Yet again, we out-cheered the Brisbane faithful as we marginally edged the first half without having anything to show for it. In the second half, Brisbane came flying out the blocks, and only a few committed saves from our keeper kept the scores level. As we moved into extra time, everything suddenly clicked. The introduction of Bernie Ibini-Isei shook up the Roar defence, and we scored two rapid goals to seemingly secure the title. Defensive football was the order of the day, but for the second successive game, it wasn’t to be. Roar scored twice in the last 3 minutes, prompting their fans to outcheer us for the first time. After that, the shootout was only going to go one way. Sickening.

I came back to Canberra on the Monday, which happened to be Canberra Day. Unfortunately, I’d missed the morning hot-air balloon display, and having got up at 3am to catch the flight, I slept through most of the evening. I realised whats wrong with Canberra – it lacks people who aren’t upper class. It’s really weird.

And finally, I leave you with this snap, one of my favourites from my first trip to Canberra Botanic Gardens with the new camera. I’ve never seen a kangaroo in such deep thought!