Brisbane

Sean & Sherry Down Under

Brisbane

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June 28 - September 26, 2002

We made it to Brisbane, we have faced the facts that we have to work and that makes it sooooo hard to like Brisbane! We arrived and it was bitterly cold at night - not to mention we were sleeping in a tent - I guess it is winter, but the days were sooo beautiful. The weather was the deciding factor for us to stop in Brisbane. Apparently it just gets colder as you head south. We were going to go to Sydney to find jobs but heard about the cold weather and opted for sun once again.

Needless to say we did not last long in the tent - we went straight for a cabin and then a backpackers hostel. After about a week of touring around and looking for work - Sherry had some options in the outer suburbs of Brisbane and was having trouble making a decision on which one to take - then Sean got the surprising call about the Great Raid (see the next page for details !!) so we opted for the job that gave us accomodations so that we would not have to worry about anything since we would have to live apart for a few weeks - whatever - the story of our lives - even in Australia.

Sherry's Job

Sherry's job (medical ward in an acute care hospital) is in Ipswich - we have heard it is a suburb of Brisbane but it is definitely its own little town. It is only 30 minutes from downtown Brisbane but deep in the heart of hicksville!

I picked the absolute worst season of the year to work on a medical ward - winter!!! This means tons of chest physio (too many chest infections.....eyuck!!!) I have seen more sputum than any sane person should in a lifetime.

The wards were so busy all the time. Plus I had to work on the Children's ward - and I am sure that most of you will understand how I felt about all those sick little babies....too sad. This job was definitely not for me - I felt that I really didn't have time to have quality sessions with patients - which is the main reason I truly enjoy what I do - getting to take the time to treat and assess someone fully. This job truly made me appreciate my neuro position in TBay - even with the ups and downs.

It seems that there are tons of physiotherapy positions here in Australia and that might be why they are a bit overworked and underpaid ? I learned alot and now know to say "I do NOT know how to suction and I do NOT know anything about chest physio" - when asked in an interview......haha.

I had some very cool coworkers and patients and I am sure that they all have some stories to tell about that Canadian physio girl.

We forgot to take some photos of the area so for more details of Ipswich and to see photos of our accomodations go to Liz and Dave's absolutely amazing website at this address below.

South Bank

Welcome to Ipswich

Life in Brisbane

South Bank quickly became our regular hangout whether we("we" - yah right) were hung over and just chilling, shopping, eating, going to the movies, walking, blading or just watching people. There is the coolest man-made beach and swimming area as well as markets, restaurants, boardwalks etc.

We also found this excellent deal which totally endeared us to the South Bank of Brisbane - dinner and a movie. For us - this seemed pretty hard to pass up - free parking, movie tickets and choice of dinner at one of ten restaurants for $17.50. We got caught up on all the movies - however the new releases here are approximately 6 months behind North America so technically we are waaaaay behind some of our movie lover friends back home. Some of the movies we saw are "Sum of all Fears", "Mr. Deeds" and "Minority Report".

We also went to the Planetarium here to learn about all of the Southern sky constellations (the Southern Cross and Scorpio). The sky here is so big that we felt so inspired to learn more. The Milky way is as bright as a full moon every night!

We are also addicted to Trivia night. Every Wednesday night a very entertaining host poses 4 rounds of questions and there is booze and money to be won. One round is strictly on music he plays a small portion of a tune and we have to - name that tune/next line in a song/album/artist... It is a very cool night out except when the 2 Canadians happen to go without any Australian support.

You see the questions definitely have an Australian bias - Aussie history, Aussie television, Aussie music, Aussie politics etc. On one round of 15 questions we got 1 correct(No the answer was not Threes company) but Harry (the host) felt for us and gave us some extra points for trying. However he found out that we were Canadian and did a whole round on Canada trivia - the locals enjoyed it and were happy we were there!! Example questions - In the 1800's who did the Canadians play the first cricket game against? and Which city in Canada has a whole underground city? and Which word do ALL Canadians say? Anyways we only go 13/15 on the Canada round ????

The Commoners

Champion Trivia Team

Our justice came on our very last night at trivia when we actually won a whole round - (with no help from Harry). We did have a full team - complete with Canadians, Aussies(but saddly one was away) and Paumies. Then much to the surprise of us and everyone else in the room we actually won the night - we were so proud. Booze and money....we are the champs!!!

At the Gabba

Lions vs Crows

Liz & Dave

One of the best parts of our stay in Ipswitch was meeting some travellers from Liverpool, Liz and Dave. It took one night of sharing the kitchen to find we have tons in common and instantly became good friends. They also got addicted to trivia night, like rollerblading, enjoy the sea, and like us Liz likes to spend money - yikes!!! Most of all we shared stories of home and they taught us more about the UK and got us quite inspired to continue our travels.

South Bank

Brisbane

We have traveled alot but they will have done all continents next year (minus Antarctica). We suck! Coolest thing is that Dave will have all Continents stamped in one passport! Its too bad Liz didn't try that - she used two passports! It seems that most of our closest friends from Australia are actually travellers from the UK.

We were like proud Aussie hosts and took Liz and Dave to their first Australia Rules Football game at the Gabba. It was great fun - we were in the nosebleed section but the for the new English fans there was plenty of beer, cursing and yelling at the umpires and screaming our heads off and oh yah we think Dave enjoyed himself too.

Liverpool Liz's Pet

Sean absolutely loves their house "The Liverpool Resort" and I am sure that he would enjoy spending all of his holidays at their house. Pool, Spa, Daves Beer (even when he is on call) drinks snacks, internet, two good DJ's.... - what more could a man ask for.... He has already hosted thier first BBQ and has sent out invitations to a pool party he will be throwing in the near future. You are all formally invited!! (Sound familiar to anyone at home).

Food

If you remember our stories from Malaysia regarding Sean and food you will appreciate the fact that he has been able to finally explore some of the food options available in the world. Aside from the normal Greek, Chinese and Italian - we have eaten Indian, Mongolian, Mexican, Turkish, Thai, Japanese, Moreton Bay Bugs, yabbies and other Australian cuisine. We still have not tried kangaroo (we just think they are too damn cute to eat!), witchety grubs, sushi trains, emu, crocodile, goana but really who needs to???

All this training will definitely help him in Thailand when we trek to the north and have to eat at the villages. However Sean is still pretty freaked about the thousand year eggs(green and brown eggs I'd rather a mosquito bite in Chang Mia!).

We will keep you informed of Sean's struggles and triumphs!!!

Sean's Job

After Sean finished filming the movie he knew that he would have to try to find a job in his field. However he patiently sat by the phone everyday waiting for Hollywood to call........He figured that Hollywood must not have our correct mobile number and he ended up taking a position at a construction site - water and sewer.

I really lucked out finding this job. We were at that point where I had to choose any work (ie. Labourer) and I called one more place just in case. The company is called D.J. and M.B. MacCormick. Ironic part is that I traveled all the way to Brisbane in hopes of finding a job and landed one with a Perth based company, and when I was in Perth it was hell to find a job, go figure.

I was originally brought in to assist the project manager on the administration of the contract (QA, costing, variances...) for a 2.8 km sewer trunk project. But I like it better in the field, and spent just as much time keeping things going for the sub-contractors and helping out on the backfill crew, trying to deal with that damn water and muck!!!

The project consisted of installing a new trunk main as deep as 12m. The pipe was 1500mm or 1350mm. Of the 2.8km 1km was jacking and boring. Longest run being 220m (monster jack required)!

There are some subtle differences in construction practices over here, but aside from driving on the wrong side of the road it was very easy to adjust to there work methods and requirements. Physical differences are where you find the most differences.

In their winter you still have +30 deg C days. Spring came on a Friday and by Monday we were going full on into the summer. Plus thirty will be good days for the boys from now on and by Nov and Dec they will get plus 40!!!

Critters??? Hmmm. Where to start? One of the cool parts to the job is that the sewer trunk cut through a Koala and Bird reserve. Some of the other guys saw the Koalas I was always just in time for the tracks! My boss saw a koala pass through one day and I ran out to get a glimpse but nothing??? We still can't really tell if there was an actual Koala or one of those tourist Drop Bears!!

Heaps of blue tongued - no tail lizards cross his path and he has seen possums in trees never mind the huge Huntsmen Spiders that drop in to see him in the office!!. But he is still on the look for KOALAs (which accounts for him tripping all the time) we are desperately trying to find them in the wild. They must be great hiders.

Back home as well as here we get rodents that will run down into the trench or down through the pipe. Difference is that in Oz it was a three-foot high rat that put his head down and feet up as it tackled our lead pipe layer when we tried to flush him from the pipe!!!

Home as well as here, we are required tramp through the long grass looking for survey stakes and lay out where the work has to go. Only difference is that in Oz it is very close to Russian roulette. You know the snakes (and what ever else that scurries) are there, which would be fine if you could see your own f!#$%^* feet!!!! It is spring and everyone says, watch the snakes just before they ask you to go in the long grass ThanksI think??

It would have been easier had I not seen so many snakes during the project. First was a green tree snake (poisonous but not a lot? - what??). Then one nice afternoon while I was working down inside a hole, a 7 Carpet snake (Python, not poisonous) decided to crawl in with me. The worst has to be the ones that look the same as a Taipan (number 1 deadliest in the world). The Aussies just say Cant be a Taipan - too dangerous to see them in the wild. Not that they arent there, just that it is better to think it wasnt one after all???

Even the soil here is dangerous, Fair Dinkum! The soil has organic phosphates which simply means add water and you have ACID. Not too bad on your skin but a bugga if you are a fish or any other creature in the water. Good if you are a concreter cause you will be back in ten years to redo any concrete exposed to the ground water!

Best of all are soil quality tests. Yes they do all the same things to make sure the gradation is right so we get the correct compactionBlah Blah Blah. But the additional test they require here is the Fire Ant test. Yep, the ants that swarm attack and kill!! Your soil/quarry source has to be continuously tested for the damn things. Carnivorous Ants, go figure!!!

All in all it was a great experience and the guys on the job were a lot of fun. It was an international array of construction personnel - Aussies, Paumies, Fijians, Kiwis, Patties and oh yah one Canuck!!

Gold Coast

We travelled to the Gold Coast - just one hour south of Brisbane for 2 separate weekends - there is so much to do there. We met up with some of the "cast members" from the Great Raid and went to the beach to watch the surfers at Surfer's Paradise. We thought about surfing but it is much too cold for us - yep we are now officially wimps and used to this climate. We toured around a bit but knew that we would be coming back to the area in October for 10 days so we relaxed most of all.

Andrew and Julie

Dracula's Cabaret

The second time we went to the Gold Coast was to visit some Aussie friends. There are some cool restaurants and shows. We went to a freaky cabaret show called Dracula's with Andrew (Private Hand) and Julie. Then we made a guest appearance at the casino - they have $2.50 daquiri's (white russian daquiris!!!) - we made some donations at the tables but we figured we were winning at the bar every time.

Good fun come when you watch the buses and buses of Asian tourists pull up to the beach in their Armani suits - they would all pile out and rush to the beach/water. Take as many photos as they could in their alloted time. We could seriously watch them for hours - they took pictures of everything - people walking their dogs, ice cream vendors.... Then they would spend 20 minutes trying to get the sand out of their suits and shoes.

The Gold Coast also has a drive-in theatre - we went for a double feature. We truly felt like Aussies when we had our steak and mushroom pies instead of popcorn at the movies. It was Sean's first drive-in movie - only in Australia??

Whale Watching

We drove 3 hours north of Brisbane to Hervey Bay to take a cruise to watch the Southern Humpback whales in their migratory pattern. They come north from Antartica every year at this time to have their babies and then they head south again - the whole coast is on their path.

Sean booked everything so you can imagine how much information was missing when we got there. Where was the marina? Never mind where the hotel was, what was the name of it? All we knew was that we went out sometime Sunday on the Blue Dolphin (that should be enough - right?!).

We were surprisingly early enough for some breakfast (on the go) and met the boat at 7:00am. It was a full day tour, we started really early since we picked a small boat (i.e.slower!). This way Sean didnt have to throw anyone over board competing with people to try and see the whales over the edge of the boat!!

We have also heard from other sources that sharks tend to follow the whales to get the babies. And since Sean seems to have acquired a shark obsession we were hopeful to see some sharks too.

We left at 7:30, but not before we had a long talk about how the North Easterly winds were providing very ruff seas!! (If I didnt know better I would say the bad seas are following us???) LOL, Sorry about the luck for our four visitors coming over in October! But we all decided to continue on to see some whales. We got to Fraser Island around 9:30 just in time for all the other boats (that left at 9:00) to scream by us and stop at the pod of whales just 5 miles ahead!! Bugga!!!

We knew the small boat was a gamble but we still had the whole day ahead of us and so what if everyone else got to see the whales WAYYYY before us. There were four whales to see and were pretty excited as we SLOWLY approached. Our excitement increased as we got closer and closer. We could here them call and the blow hole sounded and looked awesome. Their heads rose out of the water like bobbers as they swam in a tight pod.

This was very exciting to watch as we approached and would have been amazing provided we finished approaching?? Our first attempt was a driveby siting, There they are.OHThere they go. It was decided that wasn't the best approach so our captain got out of the wind and waves by getting in behind the biggest Catamaran he could find. Now again this would have been fine had the whales not been on the other side of their boat. Obviously the dirty looks he got was enough of a message to move. Great we can see them and if we would just approach up to where their boats are it would be perfect.

Everyone knows that you can only approach so close (100-300m) but to be on the safe side our captain made sure he was the furthest boat away at all times!!! Seas were rough and boating alongside of the other must have been difficult since our captain found it quite comfortable to go way to the other side of the whales where there were absolutely no other boats, Hmmmmm, why would all other boats be way over there if this was so open???? Could it be the great big shining star on the horizon burning a hole in our camera every time we opened the shutter???

Sherry could sense the frustration and convinced Sean to go inside and enjoy morning tea. After calming down over some fresh pineapple Sean decided not to let it bother him and went to the front nose of the Catamaran to enjoy what ever action we were lucky enough to see. The whales must have sensed his anguish and wanted to teach him a lesson because just as he settled into his new seat the whales took off. Two went up the coast and two went straight out from shore. We were already pointed away from shore and decided to follow these two.

The 360 Breach

As discussed the waves were very large and we were full throttle, headed right into them. Sitting on the front nose was only one small step up from dragging underneath when it comes to getting wet. But the show the whales put on made it all worth it!!!

There were two of them and they were swimming away fast. One would disappear and come leaping out of the wave with a huge belly flop for its landing!! Most of the time they were doing 360deg spins in their breaches!!! And monster fin flaps as they swam along on their side.

We were screaming along trying to keep up to them and they just kept on breachinh one after the other. The captain was actually very surprised at all of the activity and wondered out loud how long the whales could keep this up? He told us of a great watching day once when the whales jumped more than twenty times in one siting. I looked at the sopping wet German beside me and asked if he had any idea how many jumps we saw and he could only answer it was over 36 since he already changed his film!!!

We lost site of them once and slowed down and waited, they reappeared out of the deep just a few feet from the side of the boat. Sprayed some water and slowly made their way of to the side to do some more breaching!!!

We were schedule to go for lunch on more than one occasion but none of us (including the crew of our boat or the boats near by) could get enough of the aerial show the whales were putting on. All in all it was a great excursion and we have recommended it to many people since we got back to Brisbane.

Sunshine Coast

We finally made it up to the Sunshine Coast. We had such great times on the Gold coast it was hard to turn the car North instead of South! But Noosa was all that it was cracked up to be. Not quite the Yuppie Town LA is - but there were Mercedes baby carriages everywhere. But just to keep the social classes in check they sprinkle in a few backpackers.

I had to hold Sean in a headlock until he promised to take the day off so we could spend Sat and Sun in Noosa. We got an awesome apartment for $50 per night overlooking the ocean and really enjoyed shopping in the specialty shops along the strip. Actually Sean lost his mind and was spending like a fiend and right in the middle of Town Square is where I had to put Sean in his second headlock of the trip as I dragged him to the car. But not before he was wearing Billabong attire, new sandals and a pair of Maui-Jims, what a spoiled brat!!! I tried and tried to spend as much as him but just couldn't justify spending just because he was !!

The first night was fun as we made our way along Hastings St. looking for a nice place to eat. Sean wanted to eat bugs (eyuck) I dont really like the seafood, so we settled on the Mongolian BBQ. It was pretty cool - you BBQ it right on your table and it also came with bugs for Sean.

The surf was perfect for a beginner but surprisingly Sean was fixated on finding the these rare birds that people from work told him we would find in the National Park.

"What Birds?" I asked

"You'll see don't you worry!" was all he had to offer.

We got up early to hike through the National Park but not before we stopped in for a sunrise breakfast overlooking the beach at the Noosa Surf Club. Breakfast was fast as Sean was in search of the rarest of Australian Birds found along the coastline of this cool park.

We headed straight for the ranger Station to get maps and find out about all the sightings from the past days. All they could tell us was where we could find Koalas in their natural habitat, Bugga! It seems Sean was so eager, that as we hiked into the ranger station we missed all the Koalas in the gum trees right above our head. We backtracked to find one all by itself and just a few trees away a mother carrying its baby. The little guy was so small we could just make out his eyes and dark nose as it peeked around the tree branches and out from underneath her arms! Awwwwwww!!!!

But we had no time Sean needed to find those damn birds. We drove around and came in from the backside which turned out not to be the best option. It was our first interaction with the magpies, one swoop and some loud flaps just to warn us they are watching as we headed down the path!!!

Noosa National Park

We bushwalked quite a distance and came first to Devils Kitchen and then to Hells Gate which were both very cool- rugged landscapes on the ocean. No surprise that Sean asked to be the camera guy and directed me out on the ledge. From the gate I followed Sean off track to find those damn birds.

"No worries Mate, their supposed to be just around the point from Lion Rock."

"I'm just following you so DO NOT get us lost in an Australian forest!"

As we were making our way down this creepy goat path, he was muttering something about how confident he was, when a very distinct rustle at our feet interrupted us!

"Sherry stop did you hear that?"

"Hear What?"

"That!"

"Hear what?"

"Fucken Hell..THAT! Did you hear that?"

"Ohhhh thaaaaaaat! Yah what was that?"

There was no mistaking it, one of the most famous Aussie critters decided to makes its appearance and wound its way between us as we stood shit scared stiff just a few feet apart!

Can you find him?

From then I was quite surprised to find just how close you can hike behind someone as we made our way along this goat path. I am quite certain the Brown Snake (#2 deadliest in the world) would never have gotten between us this time! Sean was just bothered that he still didn't find what we were looking for and we were both glad to quickly force our way down the goat path!

Finally emerging through the trees! "Yahhooo we found them" startled me as he started running down towards the beach tearing all his close off.

"Found whaaaaat?" I followed behind only to find out what he was looking for this entire time. Alexandria Bay lay straight ahead and so did all the naked women on the beach. I found him running almost in circles, giggling about something, flashing two large white smiles for the whole world to see (depending on which way he was facing). When I put him in the third headlock of the weekend as I dragged this muttering fool out of the park!

I think he was a bit hysterical after our eventful hike through the hot park because I mostly saw all the naked men and a whole bunch of people that should never be naked in public -especially Sean..haha.

We have tons more photos to add so keep checking........