Brisbane

At long last the rushing around is over and we are at last unwinding in Brisbane. The last few days in Blenheim passed in a blur with the packers arriving last Wednesday and getting everything packed and dispatched by Thursday night. Not a bad effort for two young guys. While the packing was going on we stayed with Graham and Sandra who were house-sitting a beautiful house for friends of theirs right on the waterfront at Waikawa Bay. Friday morning we went back to the house for a final cleanup and inspection of the place with the property manager and by lunchtime it was all over. Quite sad really to see the place completely empty and waiting for new people to move into it. The good news though is that they moved in yesterday, are signed up for twelve months and are paying $400 a week which will go a long way towards the cruising budget.

The trip to Brisbane was far from uneventful, we stayed at the Copthorne Commodore near the airport on Saturday night and were up at 2.30am to catch the plane at 6. So far, so good. The drama started when we went through the x-ray machine at the airport. Both our bags were pulled aside for a search and while mine was ok, Doreen's had one or two small problems. The first was the 12 inch carving knife hidden in the bowels of her computer bag. I don't know if you've ever tried to come up with a convincing reason as to why you had a carving knife in your bag but I can assure you it isn't easy. Actually the truth of the matter was that there were a few last minute things left in the house that were to go on the boat and the knife was one of them but try telling that to airport security officers at 5 in the morning. Next the 3 bottles of Q-Tol we were taking for Kerrie were deemed prohibited and were consigned to the bin along with a lecture on the necessity to read the warning posters. The bottle opener with knife attached got a thorough scrutiny but somehow got through and by now I was rather hoping we hadn't accidently popped a stun grenade in the bag and forgotten about it. In the end we got through minus the prohibited items and nothing more than a lecture but it could have been nasty!

Kerrie and Rick and Ange and Zane and the five grandchildren were all at the airport to meet us along with the 75,856 Japanese tourists who had disgorged themselves off of a fleet of 747's at the same time as our Airbus with about 30 passengers arrived. Add all this to the 3 hours on Jetstar Airways with nothing to eat or drink (the menu for the pay as you eat crap they had to offer was only available in Japanese) and by now you will understand I was just a tad frazzled.

Life has taken a turn for the better since then though. The weather has been beautiful (around 25C) and it's been good to catch up with the Australian contingent of the family again. Looking after the children hasn't been too traumatic, they seem to know what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it and mainly it's all going quite smoothly.

Well that's all for now, it's 6am and the starting gun for the getting ready for school part of the day is about to be fired so must away and hide for an hour or two.

More in a day or two.