Riverfire

 28/09/2012
  We’ve been on  day trip to Scarborough and we went there via Brighton and Margate! Not bad for a five hour trip. Australian geography is just not improving. Having done most of our non city trips up into the hills we decided to go and look at  the sea, where the locals go, for a change.
 First we had to negotiate the busy suburbs before getting to the northern end of Moreton Bay and Scarborough point. In fact the whole journey is in a built up area, one village, town or suburb  being linked to the next one and not what you would call a pleasant drive out to the coast.
 To get to the peninsular you have to drive over a long bridge that spans Bramble Bay, a bay within a bay, as it’s part of Moreton Bay……very confusing. Anyway the bridge is exactly 3 kilometres long, quite new and must have been a difficult challenge to build.
 At the northern end of the bridge is Woody Point which was very busy with day trippers (pensioners) and holidaymakers (kids) all having their picnics. We took a walk along the jetty which is pretty much designed to accommodate fishermen as there are special tables set aside for gutting and filleting fish and for preparing bait. The Australians fish to a man and I now wish I did, having spent so much time around  good fishing spots. From Woody point we drove the few k’s up the coast to Scarborough Point, which again was quite busy. We had lunch and walked around the boat harbour of Moreton Bay Yacht Club, nearly as nice as Yorkeys Knob. Apart from the marina this part of South East Queensland hasn’t got a lot going for it, there are much prettier parts of the coastline just a short way north of here and also south of the city.
 I suppose if you live in the city this is the shortest distance to travel to do a bit of sea fishing and get a whiff of the ocean. We think we prefer Scarborough U K!

 29/09/2012
  Today was the last day of the Brisbane Festival, an arty farty cultural and musical event that has been going on for the last month. It culminated in Riverfire, a spectacular firework and laser show, second probably to the Sydney Harbour New Years Eve display, and we went to see it happen.
It has been a very hot day so we just mooched about until late afternoon before catching the train into the city. The fireworks started at 7pm so with the time to spare we had a couple of beers at one of the posher pubs in the Mall where we found the beer cheaper than the bloody Irish pub…….. and it was table service.
  Apart from the festivities here in Brisbane this is finals weekend for Aussie Rules (today) and Rugby league (tomorrow) and  we managed to catch the  last quarter of the rules final, a very exciting and physical game played by men as opposed to football fairies.
  We found a spot on Victoria Bridge  to watch the display, us and 500,000 others. It’s true, there were half a million people watching , which I thought was most of the population of Queensland. After being entertained by dancing helicopters the display started with two jets zooming overhead shooting tracer-like fireworks as they went by, that being the cue for the fireworks to begin, which went on non stop for 30 minutes, mostly from barges on the river but also from the top of the skyscrapers that tower over the river.
  It really was a most spectacular sight and at times we didn’t know which way to look for the best. Unfortunately our camera is not really up to taking photos of any quality in the dark and at a distance, so the photos we took may not be very good. We’ll see. The journey back home to Cardiac Hill was a bit of a trial, everyone going for trains at the same time. Not often you find yourself crowded in Australia.