This is my stop!

I'm off back to Europe for a few weeks.... England, Ireland and Crete here I come, yahoo!! I've got a post ready for the City Daily Photo theme day on 1st of July but other than that you won't hear from me until July 21st or 22nd. 

Blanket with your coffee?

My favourite place to sit and have a coffee is on the Goodwill Bridge. Great staff, lovely coffee and a picture-postcard view. (No, I'm not being paid to write that.) This was taken a couple of weeks ago from a moving CityCat so apologies for the blurriness. As you can see, it was warm enough to take your shirt off while canoeing down the river. It's chilled down to about 20 degrees celcius (68f) which means winter woolies for many Brisbane folks. I know. I used to laugh... but you get acclimatised after a few years. And if you're having coffee on the bridge at this time of year they even provide blankets. Toasty!

Alighting at North Quay

The downside of Brisbane's public transport system is that it costs a fortune to go anywhere. There isn't a maximum fare per day so if you were intent on a long day traveling all over the place, you rack up some serious dollars. You can lower the cost of each trip by getting a Go Card or if you pay cash, get all your travel done within 2 hours and your initial ticket is the only one you need to buy.

The upside of Brisbane's public transport system is the CityCat. It's a network of catamarans that run from the University in St. Lucia in the south to Northshore, north east of the city towards the Gateway Bridge. You just can't beat cruising along the river with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair.

Jacaranda Park, Yeronga

I am still here!

 Recently I bought a couple of toy lenses for my camera phone - $35 for a macro AND a fisheye. This is taken with the macro although you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the fisheye. I think the difference is the direction of the curve in the lens - one is concave and one convex.

 You don't realise just how many jacaranda trees there are in Brisbane until October when they suddenly explode into blossoms and then are blown into carpets of purple all along the streets. I love it!

For more jacaranda posts, click on the label below.

Kurilpa Derby 2012

Every year, the residents of West End close off the main road, dress up and get on their bikes, scooters, prams, beds, office chairs, wheelie bins or whatever else they can put on wheels for a big party. There's a big parade followed by a series of whacky races. There's plenty of music, dancing and laughs to be had....

 

 

 

 The squid relay is disgusting but strangely mesmorising. Teams have to run with and transfer a squid to their team-mates using their mouths only. My thanks to Pete for these two fab photos below. I was standing right next to him at the first transfer point, camera poised, ready for action, when my camera suddenly stopped working. Aaargh! The memory card had filled up - what a schoolgirl error. I am still kicking myself. Anyway you can check more of his photos out here.

Row Boats

Despite being in the middle of the city, you often see rowing boats, canoes and jetskis weaving their wa around the CityCats. This little jetty is a means of getting to and from the nearby marina.

Queensland Blues

Queensland voted yesterday with an astonishing swing to the right. The conservative Liberal National Party took 76 seats so far (predicted 78) leaving the ousted Labor Party with just 7! With only 4 seats going to independents, things are going to be very blue around here for a while...

Bookshop Window

It was the yellow bike reflection I was after but I ended up getting the silver ute and a bit of me in there too. This is Bent Books in West End

Today I'm taking part in Weekend Reflections.

All Aboard The Six White Boomers Bus!

Each year for the last 15 years the bus depots in Brisbane have had a competition between themselves. They each dress up one of their buses for Christmas. This is the winning bus from this year's comp courtesy of the Bowen Hills depot and I think yule agree they have gone that extra mile. We've got tinsel on every pole, gum nuts and gum leaves, a huge Aussie flag and a fleet of kangaroos (Six White Boomers, no less) all roped up to a "sleigh" piled with presents at the back. There are all sorts of Australian Christmas references like...

 

A day at the beach! Inflatable palm trees, a bucket and spade, junk food and tinnies! 

There's even a thong tied up to one of the railings: 

(That's the footwear variety)

And let's not forget the native animals riding up the front - kangaroos, an emu, a kookaburra, a platypus, a wombat... and a few other things I don't recognise... all festively draped in tinsel!

I was having a chat to the driver (Hi Lyn!) and she said passengers love it. Everyone smiles. People take photos and really get into it. Some of the drivers dress up as Santa - it's hilarious.
One woman even told her that she hadn't been looking forward to Christmas until she got on the bus.

In case you were unaware of the Aussie classic hit "Six White Boomers" well I have a little treat for you here.

The Fast Bit

If you travel by CityCat, it can be a bit slow when it chugs from one stop to another in the centre of town... but once you get out of town a little bit you can have a "King Of The World" moment by leaning on the rail at the front and singing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion really loudly.

Crash Landing!

West End's Kurilpa Derby Day kicked off with a parade of all sorts of weird and wonderful ways to wheel yourself around. There was no shortage of stacks.

Balancing Acts!

... and they managed to stay upright! Amazing!

Bikeway Cautions

The Bicentenial Bikeway around North Quay urging cyclists to be careful and S L O W. They should put these warnings on the roads around where I live.

CityCat coming in to dock.

Now and Then

I know I've only just done a post on it a few days ago but here's another view of our sparkling new CityCat terminal.
Below is a view of the old building taken January 12th this year almost 24 hours before the river peaked. You can see the roof of the old bike shelter just next to the lower bough of the fig tree. The rest of the building is submerged. That green thing sticking out of the water in the middle distance is the roof of a steam roller which the council didn't get around to moving.

West End Citycat is Now Open!

It's been over 6 months but we've finally got our Citycat service back and a really fancy "flood-proof" pontoon.

Coming Soon!

I managed to get a sneak preview of the ALL NEW West End Citycat stop after the old one was washed away in the flood in January. It should be all done by next Sunday and it's very flash. Sadly I didn't have my wide angle lens with me! (next week)

Not Long Now

For anyone who knows the old West End ferry stop, things have changed a lot around that area. Houses have been pulled down and there is a bus turning circle.  The old ferry stop which was carried down the Brisbane River during the floods is being replaced with a much bigger, swankier terminal that's due to open next month and will hopefully see us through to the next flood. You can sort of see the front of it here but not very well. We've been 6 months without a CityCat service round these parts so it'll be great to see it up and running again. In the meantime, here's some tandem bikers who just realised I was taking their photo.

The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play.

One of the free public barbeques in our local park looking very sorry for itself in the drizzle yesterday.

Cycling past me on the William Jolly Bridge