In the morning, our hosts graciously took us on a quick walk through a park very close to their home. As we wandered we kept an eye out for the native koalas that we were assured lived in the trees. Try as we might, not one could be seen.
As this was our last full day in Brisbane, Isabella and I decided to walk around the city center. I had been to Brisbane previously and I offered her my services as a tour guide. We parked the car on the South Bank and headed off.
Brisbane's South Bank is a hotbed of activity, at any time. Although it was late morning there did seem to be a lot of people around. We marched through walks of bougainvillea, into a Nepalese temple, through tropical gardens and around the city's artificial beaches. The market stalls offered all sorts of crafts, from incense sticks to dyed shirts and caricatures. The South Bank is truly a living space. But the South Bank is not all that Brisbane has to show.
Crossing a bridge over the Brisbane River, we made our way to the city center via the Queensland University of Technology campus. QUT sits in the city's heart right beside parliament and I had hoped that it might be open to show Isabella its interior but, alas, it was closed. Instead, we continued our journey through the neighbouring Botanical Gardens. In there we found all manner of plant and beast; Isabella was particularly taken with the large lizards that roamed the manicured grass freely. As a conservation officer, she is keenly interested in flora and fauna and took as many pictures as she could.
After the Botanical Gardens we marched to the eastern edge of the city center which is, in my opinion, far the more interesting. We walked along the riverfront, passing the old customs house until we reached Eagle Street Pier. Here, at a little riverside lounge, Isabella tried her first Australian beer. She had made it her mission to sample as many native beers as she could and as beer is such a large part of Australian culture, it is a necessary requirement if you wish to truly immerse yourself in it. I believe she had a XXXX (Four X), the local Brisbane beer but I don't remember if she liked it.
We continued to walk through the city but the rain picked up and we were forced to find some quick shelter. The rain didn't last long and quickly abated to a more pleasant rate. Before long, we made our way back to the car and I drove Isabella to a dance lesson.
With couchsurfing the idea is that you repay your hosts in kind, rather than money. Isabella's deal with Panche was that she would help teach his dance class, which was run out of a church in an inner suburb. I had no inclination to dance so I wandered around the area until the lesson was over. However, not to be a freeloader, I helped with the clean-up once the lesson was done.
The last trip of the day was a drive up Mt. Coot-Tha, a very large hill that provides excellent views of Brisbane. While looking out over the city, Isabella and I decided that this first leg had been very successful and that if Panche and Leanne were typical of our couchsurfs, we would be in for a wonderful time. We watched as the sun shot its last rays on the city and Brisbane's lights come to life, one-by-one, like small candles. On the way down the mountain, I was stopped by police at a random breath test, known throughout Australia as the RBT. These are fairly common in the country as drink-driving is seen as a pernicious scourge. I was allowed to pass unmolested once the machine said I was completely sober.
Back at Panche and Leanne's, Isabella and I were faced with a hard choice. The floods further north had cut parts of the major coastal Bruce Highway, which was to be our route north to Townsville and Cairns. We had a couchsurf booked in Cairns and he was telling us that his trucks were able to get through via a more inland route; the host was a truck company manager. The first choice before us was to continue as planned using the inland route. It was a bit longer but once north of the flood zone, the driving would be easy. It did carry the risk that by some misfortune we could become stranded. Our second choice was to modify our route and head inland towards northern and western NSW. This would be unknown territory for both of us but did at least have a reduced risk of flood-related misadventure.
In the end, Isabella and I decided to take the second option as we were too worried about possible flooding. Unfortunately it meant cutting off the northern portions of our tour which included the Great Barrier Reef, Mt. Isa and Darwin. I apologized but promised Isabella we'd see them on her next tour Down Under.
And so with a new route planned, we'd have to improvise a little. Our new route would take us through Moree, Bourke and/or Cobar and Broken Hill, all in NSW, before finally rejoining our original route near Port Augusta in South Australia. We were confident that once we reached NSW we would be free from the floods. Little did we know that the waters plaguing Australia were not done with us yet either.
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