Monday 26 July 2010

Red wine and Rummikub

We arrived into Brisbane in the middle of the mild Australian winter and went to stay with Meg's cousin Caeli and his housemate Mike in New Farm. They lived in a traditional Queensland timber house with no central heating (the house is designed to promote effective natural cooling!) so our evenings were mostly spent sat on the sofa in front of a log fire, drinking, talking, and playing Rummikub.


After two months without a glass of wine we'd been looking forward to Australia and quickly set about making up for lost time. Meg was delighted to find that a bottle of sparkling Aussie wine was about half the price of a sixpack of beer and so Mark's previous jibes of her having a champagne taste on a beer budget were completely flipped on their head.


Caeli and Mike had both made plans to go away for the weekend leaving us with the house to ourselves. The first thing we did was to go to the supermarket and then cook ourselves dinner! Not exactly rock n'roll but it's funny the things you miss when travelling.


We did some sightseeing in Brisbane including a visit to the Castlemaine XXXX brewery (according to those from New South Wales, it is so named because Queenslanders can't spell BEER), listening to some live blues guitar in a pub in West End and taking the ferry along the Brisbane River at night. However, we have to confess that mostly we enjoyed the relaxing effect of a slightly more domesticated life with Mark going to the gym and Meg pottering about in the kitchen. We haven't quite started to miss normal life enough to want to find a job just yet though!

On our last day, Caeli treated us to a delicious seafood lunch on the river at Bretts Wharf which included oysters, barramundi, and an unexpected education in cuttlefish by our very charming and helpful waiter. Not sure if it will be this luxurious in the campervan!

1 comment:

  1. hello
    I am receiving mail for a matthew ames but he doesnt live here at 62 nelson road.
    Regards Denise

    ReplyDelete