Aussie update

Well it’s been a month or so since I arrived in Australia, and if I thought I was relaxed when I arrived … well, I’m more chilled out now than I have been in years.  Maybe ever.  Life is pretty damn good, let’s put it that way…

I ended up spending a bit over three weeks in Melbourne, basically just hanging out with the whanau.  That was great – it’s the most time Susie and I have spent in the same city in the last decade – and it was fantastic to be able to spend plenty of time with my nephew Jake.  Now 15 months old, he’s an adorable little dude, very fun, happy and cute, and my timing couldn’t have been better as he progressed from taking the very occasional step to walking across the living room in the time I was there.

Other than hanging out in the burbs, I did head into the city a couple of times for drinks / dinner / rugby watching with Ems and Ren, which was lots of fun.  I can highly recommend the Abyssinian, an Ethiopian restaurant in Kensington, for anyone looking for fantastic food at a very reasonable price!

One of the other highlights was going to the inaugural Melbourne Travel Writing Festival at the Melbourne Uni one weekend – basically a series of hour-long seminars covering a wide range of things related to travel writing – novels, articles, travel guides and whatever else.  Some pretty big names were speaking, including Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet) and I took a lot away from the weekend.  Feeling all inspired, I’m hoping to put together a feature article about one of the places I go to in the next few months and see if I can get it published.  I’ve always wanted to do the travel writing thing at some stage in my life – got to be in to win, and all that.

Up to Brisbane last week to hang out with a couple of friends – first off Danni (and a bunch of her mates, as it transpired).  After a surprisingly good lunch at a local pub, I was introduced to the delights of such Brisbane shopping establishments as the Reject Shop (obviously I fitted right in) and Bi-Lo.  Bex (one of Danni’s friends) was my guide to all this wonderment, and we somehow managed to turn a trawl round the suburbs into something pretty bloody amusing.  And we hadn’t even had that many beers at lunch.  The fun certainly didn’t stop there though.  Hell no.  Still to come was a couple of hours at the local bowls club.  The beer was certainly cheap, and the old timers were good value, so no complaints from this kid.  The evening was Bex’s birthday party time – and lets face it, if you can’t have a good time with party hats, kazoo thingies, balloons to make pornographic sculptures from, a 5 kg barramundi and copious quantities of beer – well, I don’t know when you can have a good time, quite frankly.

Another highlight of my time in Brisbane was the weather – warm and sunny (who would have thought) with temperatures in the low 20′s every day.  Taking advantage of this fact one afternoon, I wandered from near the Gabba to South Bank and into the city enjoying the views, food and drinking opportunities … as one does.  To cap off my action packed day, I bought a book and lay in the sunshine reading it for a good couple of hours.  Tell you what, this travelling thing is hard work.  Don’t know how I do it, I really don’t.

A train, bus ride and walk later, I rocked up at Mike & AJ’s place in Redcliffe.  Well, pretty close to their place at least, eh AJ?   Mike and I proceeded to knock over several Heineken’s and talk appropriate amounts of guy shit while AJ was performing in the opening night of a local musical production.  We mixed things up significantly once she got home, though.  We broke out the Southern Comfort.  I think the drinks and BS stopped flowing around 2.30am … well, there’s something fundamentally fantastic about being able to sit outside drinking til the early hours of the morning – in the middle of winter!

The next day I met up with Deano (after spending a relaxed few hours wandering along the beach and having lunch with AJ), and after a night at his mother’s place we headed up to a holiday house on the Sunshine Coast, where I’m writing this.  We’ve had a hell of a hectic time up here over the last few days – hell, it’s pretty challenging working out the best time to head down the beach, vs bbq’ing, vs sitting in the sun and drinking beer.  Again, it’s a hell of a life…

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