Monday

The flight from Darwin to Brisbane took nearly four hours. Most people slept, we took off at 1:00AM, I’m a nervous flyer so I stayed awake and helped the pilots, watching the stars and the towns below come in and out of sight. We headed into a glorious sunrise and landed at 5:30AM.

I caught the Air Train to Roma street and walked to the YHA, no checking in until at least 1:00PM, I walked to a Pack & Send that looked close (NOT) posted a rather long item I acquired in Darwin home to myself. Got back to the Hostel by which time I was nearly delirious. They gave me a pass so I could go to the lounge area, a room with 8 of the largest couches I have seen with 10 guys all watching the Super Bowl. The room was blissfully cold so I sat down watched Shakira and Jennifer Lopez shake their things and woke up 3 Hours later.

After getting into my dorm, shower and change. I head straight to the City Cat, a great way to get on the river see the city and basically chill out. I did the entire loop to Hamilton on the Northshore and then to St Lucia. I lost track of time but I think it was a couple of hours. At St Lucia is the University of Queensland, until then there had only been me and a few locals getting on and off as we zigzag up and down the river. However at St Lucia more and more people kept getting on all the seats are now filled and people are even standing. They all have lanyards on so Dr Watson has to know what’s a foot, they are Linguists from a Linguistic Conference all speaking a multitude of languages about syntax and phonetics and stuff I will have to google to understand a fascinating end to a big day!

Distance Traveled 3358Km

Distance Walked 10KM

Super Bowl Result: Kansas City Chiefs won, beating the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 so there you go!

Tuesday

Thankfully it’s cooler today, this is the first time I’m not uncomfortable in days. I walk towards where I think the Botanical Gardens are, police are everywhere directing traffic, there is Climate Change demonstration they have blocked the freeway. I stand on a corner watching for a while and start talking to a lady about what’s going on, 2 hours later after a walk in the gardens, a coffee and a beautiful conversation with (Australian born) Angela from Hamburg we farewell each other, 2 travellers who’s paths crossed and united for a short and special moment.

The gardens are spectacular, these are the original gardens established in 1828 they have survived multiple flooding events. There is a fascinating collection of well established trees, many from far away, the original gardens director convinced visiting ships captains to bring seeds back next time so many of the species are really interesting.

Next I walk to St John’s there is a St James in an outer suburb of Brisbane, I decided St John, brother of James will be my pilgrimage here. WOW, did I make a good choice even if your not a church goer this is a must see it is spectacular, the size, the stone, the stained glass windows this is a majestic building, there is a window for each of the Saints, (I had no idea there are so many) I can’t find St James so I go and ask one of the guides. We located the window it’s in a difficult spot to photograph but there is St James just as you would expect him to be dressed as a pilgrim with shells and staff.

As I leave at the front above the main doors are all the Saints carved in stone.

Writing this now I should have realise this was going to be a special place St John’s Cathedral, not a church a Cathedral. There is normally a labyrinth inside the Cathedral. Labyrinth is another form of pilgrimage unfortunately it’s packed away today as one of the local schools is having a musical recital here this evening. This plants a seed of thought….. I suddenly feel like attending some live music…….

Back at the hostel for a rest and a quick search of the net I find there is and Open Mic session at The Tivoli, it’s not far from the city an Uber has me sitting at a table in 10Min. People start to arrive all with various guitar cases and key boards most have an inner city hip vibe some look like mums and dads (turns out they were) the organiser looks like a character out of a Tarantino movie. I am looking more Indiana Jones than most. 7:30PM sharp the sessions start, each musician gets to play two songs, some are ok but a lot are excellent and couple were exceptional. I have never been to an Open Mic, I had a bloody good time, many of the songs were original, we heard lyrics like ‘I’m a mistress of sadness’ to songs about working down a coal mine, there were ukulele, a grand piano, electric guitars, even a piano accordion. The accordion was played by the Mum, who could rock with the best of them and delivered the best line of the night ‘this is the fan club, we breed them all’ as she waved a hand towards 4 teenagers sitting up front. Towards the end a local came over to find out where I was from we chatted for a while. The best set was the last, I had no idea I was about to be rocking to a band called Death By Carrot, who knew that Stoner Rock Psychedelic would be my thing but they were FULLY SICK and I hope I get to hear more of them live some time!

Distance Traveled 6KM

Distance Walked 14KM

Smiths Crisps Original: What you eat for dinner when you don’t know there is no restaurant at an Open Mic night.