Brisbane, Australia (Day 3, 0 km)

Well, for a city, Brisbane seems to be nice - I'm acclimatising well to being slightly warmer (and damper) than I'm used to, the public transport system (trains, busses and ferries) is all interlinked, regular, and well-supported. I've spent 3 days now walking around looking at things in between trying to get the right forms, and, while this wouldn't have been my first choice, I haven't been bored. The whole "river with many bridges" setup is something I'm quite used to from Hamilton, and it has its fair share of parks, with trees to lie beneath, etc. Some things (like petrol) appear cheaper than the exchange rate should allow, although I noticed in passing that sushi seems to be more expensive. Many businesses are the same as NZ, although there are a few very minor differences too - instead of the prolific dairy, they have many "newsagents" where you can buy magazines, chewing-gum and smokes, as one might expect. If someone asks if you have a "trigger" they want to know if you can light their cigarette, and people study at TAFE's, which I assume are like polytechs. Anyway, I'll stop showing my ignorance of ways Australian.

Following on from the Day 1 report - While looking for a cinema I spied somebody wondering by with togs and a towel, and he was friendly enough to show me a free swimming pool by the riverside all made up to look like a tropical beach. It was a much appreciated opportunity to freshen up, and I had good company for a bit with an Englishman I met in the pool. Feeling much better, I eventually found the cinema but nothing really appealed so I wondered back, and slept on the grass for a while. Feeling refreshed, I found a Nepalese Pagoda, with all sorts of intriguing carvings, close-up photos of which I must omit in the interests of family-safe viewing... After wondering around a bit more, and seeing some more parks, gardens, and the outside of the town hall, I caught the train to meet my hosts for the next few days.

Fred and Anne Glaum, and their two sons Tom and Ben, are friends of my parents from before they were married (well the sons weren't on the scene back then...). They have very generously opened up their home to me, and allowed me to stay while I am going through the process of getting my bike released from customs. I even got a packed lunch today! Their home is about 20 minutes' drive from the last station on the line, so I have relied on being able to be picked up and dropped off when required - thankfully I have easily been able to co-incide with the transport arrangements of their two sons. The advantage to being out here is the peacefulness and the natural surroundings - yesterday a fairly large goanna wondered across their lawn, and other animal life is not uncommon (read carpet-snakes, spiders and little biting ants :-) ).

In any case, yesterday I established that my forms had arrived from NZ at the shipping company office, so I caught a train out there, paid their fee, and went immediately to customs to start the process there, however, although they were very helpful and polite, my shipment wasn't yet available on their system. I discovered a few more sights, including another parkland, incorporating themed gardens, a mini tropical rain-forest, and the like. Today I went to customs first thing, but still all I got was politeness. I spent the morning browsing the Queensland Museum - although museums aren't my first choice of activity, I found it an interesting place - partly because it was so Queensland-focussed, and I was able to see specimens of all the unusual Australian wildlife, especially all those ones that might possibly cause me trouble (box jellyfish, specific snake varieties, and to a lesser extent scorpions and centipedes). Plenty of other interesting things to occupy me anyway (amazingly colourful birds, butterflies, thorny devils, etc... and have you seen fossilized faeces before?), until I struck the customs jackpot at 2.30, and was able to spend a happy 45 minutes or so with the people trying to figure out what they needed to do, and being very apologetic at the delays, although, for a government department, I was very impressed and pleased.

Anyway, now that I have all the customs and quarantine forms that I need, I still need to have the goods checked by quarantine, which can only happen when the container actually gets unpacked and my crate becomes available - this is a shipping company delay, rather than anything bearaucratic. So I am planning on going down tomorrow to explore the Gold Coast and a few other places until Monday or Tuesday, as there seems little point in hanging around here for now.

I spent the afternoon after that exploring the city gardens, including a mangrove swamp and another bridge, and caught the 5.20 back to here, where I must leave you, until next time, when I will be just a little closer to actually riding my bike.