March 14 - Australia: Brissie (Brisbane), Queensland

We both went for runs again this morning, and then we spent the day exploring Brisbane.  Before we left, however, Jon called Bruce from Kelvin Grove Parts and Service to talk about the truck.  Bruce took a look at the transfer case, and had discovered the the problem is with the front differential - which is a really bad thing.  He suggested to Jon that we might want to sell it as is instead of getting it fixed.  The repair is going to be pricey.  But he said he would make some calls and get a price estimate for us.

With that on our minds, we left to see some of Brisbane.

Trip on the City Cat

We walked down New Farm to the "Sydney Street" ferry stop.  Here, we caught the "City Cat", which is a ferry service that runs through the city along Brisbane River.  It's a commuter catamaran that is a great bargain and provides some excellent views of the city.  The weather was gorgeous, and we sat in the back of the CityCat and snapped heaps of great photos.

Story Bridge - this is the Bridge we've run over the past few days

The William Jolly Bridge

The ride up and down the river took about an hour and a half - as we rode from one end of the route to the other.  Then we doubled back and got out at North Quay, which is right in the center of the city near City Hall.  

Downtown Brisbane

We had grand plans of doing a walking tour that was outlined in Lonely Planet, but got distracted by the Queen Street Mall, which is a pedestrian mall on - obviously - Queen Street.  Jon continued in his quest for a Hawaiian shirt and we spent a few very nice hours window shopping and checking out crazy shirt patterns.

At one point, we ended up in a Massimo store looking around at some shirts they had on sale.  One of the sales girls breezed by me and said "How 'ya goin'?"  (Australian for "How are you?") and I replied "Very well, thank you."  She stopped and said "American, right?".  I was a bit astonished.  It's been a long time since someone's pegged me for an American right away!  Not that I consider myself a 'local', but I only said four little words!  So we had a good laugh about that when she said, "Oh I can spot you guys a mile away!".  She was young and full of energy and almost bubbled over when she learned that we were from New York City.  Because, you see, she just graduated from university with a marketing degree and wants to find an advertising job in New York but it's really tough there so she's been looking on the Internet every night but she just can't seem to find anything but it really isn't the right time because she needs to save some money first as she doesn't want to show up without a job or money and no place to stay but New York City seems so cool and she's really from Greece but she's been in Brisbane and oh my god did we really spend three months in Cairns because that must have been so boring compared to NYC and how long are we traveling oh we're going to love Byron Bay and oh wait is 'Sex And The City' really filmed in New York City because she really loves that show!!

Whew!

After spending the entire afternoon cruising around shopping, we decided it was time for Happy Hour.  There was a little bar area on the pedestrian mall.  So we chose a choice seat and sat to watch people cruise by on their way home from work.  There's nothing like a good dose of people watching to keep us entertained.

Jon Enjoying Happy Hour

Because the sun was going down, the air began to chill so we decided to head back.  We walked back down to the North Quay (pronounced "north key", by the way) and waited for the CityCat to come get us.

Sunset at the North Quay and Victoria Bridge - the City Cat comes to pick us up

We decided to go one more stop and, instead of getting out at Sydney Street, we got out at New Farm Park.  It was only a block or two further, but the walk took us through the park and up the hip and happening "Brunswick Street".  There were two big circus tents set up in the park for "Circus Oz", which sounds like fun.  We might have to check that out tomorrow, depending on what happens with the truck.

Back at the South Pacific Motel, we fixed some pasta with leftover sauce, and settled in to relax for the rest of the evening.