This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Tag Archives: Brisbane


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2002 Travels December 13

FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER     SEVENTEEN SEVENTY TO BRISBANE   520kms

Another Friday 13th – don’t like!

We had to do a full pack up of the camp, and incurred more midge bites in the process. Around here, the midges haven’t heard that they are supposed to be critters that only come out at dusk!

It was a long, hot, day of driving.

Refuelled at a servo at Kunda Park – 82cpl.

I had hoped we could stay a day or more at somewhere on the Sunshine Coast, but John decided to get the driving over and done with, and get to Brisbane in one day.

He had gone into “heading south” mode – making a beeline for home, as fast as he can, regardless of the comfort of doing so. I hate ending our trips this way – means the trip ends with bad memories.

The drive was tense at times, due to other drivers doing stupid things, and making John cross.

It was about 4pm when we reached the Gateway Motorway, but the traffic was not too bad. I had been somewhat worried that we would be reaching Brisbane at peak time and that this would make John even more short-tempered.

I had selected the Gateway Village Holiday Park as looking like a pleasant place to stay. South side of the city was best, because the shop John came here for was that side of the city.

The park cost us $22.50, after discount. It was a very nice park. There were lots of villas – I hoped that in the future the caravan sites did not all get sacrificed to the spread of these.

We only set up the basics for a brief stay.

Bought fish and chips from a nearby place, for tea.

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2002 Travels April 25

THURSDAY 25 APRIL     ASPLEY

We set off late morning, to do some sight seeing of parts of Brisbane we mostly had not seen before.

Drove east to the coast, through the suburbs that are almost the northern edge of Brisbane, to the older, seaside suburbs of Sandgate and Brighton. Took a road that hugged the shore line to the north – very pretty.

Crossed a long bridge to the suburbs of Redcliffe and Scarborough, again, hugging the shore line as much as we could. There was an outlook across to Moreton Island, in the distance. We parked where we could look out over the sea, and had our packed lunch.

I think if I had to live in Brisbane, it would be these seaside suburbs that were most attractive. Of course, I don’t know if they are prone to sandflies!

We left the coast then, but continued north, through Burpengary and Morayfield.

Some thirty years ago, first husband and I holidayed, for a short time one January, in Brisbane, with a friend. I remember, dimly, that it was extremely hot and humid and we could not find the energy to venture out and do much. However, we did engage in some speculation in land, buying acreage – bush – in the Morayfield area. That land was long sold, but I was curious to see if I could find it again – having only ever been there once – to see if it had been developed as Brisbane spreads north. Development of the area in general was certainly happening, but I could not locate anything familiar, or the land. At the time, although this land was distant from the Brisbane built up area, there were large areas of pine plantation between the then outer suburbs and the Morayfield area – we had thought there was a chance that development would jump the pine areas to where we bought.

From Caboolture, made our way back east again, crossing the bridge over a fairly narrow sea channel, onto Bribie Island. This appeared to be a flat, sandy island – we were not able to explore much of it by road. It appeared to be changing, with housing development happening – looked like it was on the way to becoming suburban, too.

Then it was back to camp, before the late afternoon traffic peak.


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2002 Travels April 19

FRIDAY 19 APRIL     ASPLEY

It was mid-morning by the time we got going.

The caravan park lady very nicely lent me a street directory, after I’d gone to the Office to see if there was one I could look at.

We drove to the address I had for my friend, about ten minutes from the park. There were two numbers on the same letterbox, which was a bit confusing. After getting no answer from the place I thought was correct, I put a note under the door, giving our location and phone number.

We then drove to Stafford, to Kyocera solar panels. Very quickly found out that they import the panels, and do not make them, as J said they did! They do not fit or fix solar systems. The owner seemed pretty fed up with J – join the club! We told him what J had promised our system would do, and he just rolled his eyes! His young assistant showed us a calculation which indicated that, if everything was at its optimum, our system might just run the fridge. Only the fridge. In heat, forget it!

So we came away from there convinced we have paid several thousand dollars for a lemon – we had been had by a con man. We were certainly given the impression that this was common in the industry, with a whole lot of self-taught cowboys jumping on the solar power trend.

It was all most depressing. I was reluctant to start sending more good money after bad, though. They did give us the name of a mobile person who the Kyocera people thought was reasonably competent – and honest. Decided we had no option, really, but to get an opinion from him, at least.

The Stafford shopping centre and cinema complex was nearby and John decided that he wanted to go to the pictures. Maybe to forget reality for a little while?

The earliest film that looked tolerable was at 1.10pm, so we browsed the shops for a couple of hours and had donor kebabs for lunch. I put in a finished film for processing.

The film was “Gosford Park” – British, complex, but interesting and entertaining. I enjoyed it. John had gotten confused and thought we were seeing “Kate and Leopold”, so kept waiting for the plot to develop differently!

After the film, I bought some frozen fish for dinner.

I picked up my photos – nothing special, though the few from Leopardwood were alright.

John phoned the mobile solar man and arranged for him to come at 11am on Monday.

Tea was fish and fries.

Afterwards, I read some of a novel I’d borrowed from S, in Canberra. John computed.