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The
Antipodean Adventures
Jayne & Simon
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Letter From Queensland
After a week in the bustling hive of Sydney, the thought of heading north away from it all was quite appealing. The final destination of this leg of the journey was to be Brisbane. It being a good 1000 km (600ish miles), we stopped along the way in Taree at the home (or should I say menangerie) of the Truman-Brownes.
Norm and Jude, our contemporaries in age and revolutionaries in fact, have FIVE children - Buster, Sequel, Arlo and the twins, Phoebe and Roseanne.
Norm is from Northern Ireland and Judy is from New Zealand. They and Simon have been friends for 20+ years. Fortified with a good night's rest and samplings of many yummy things from their garden, we continued to wind our way north.
Up, over and along the coastal range, the countryside changes quite a bit from the dense, scrub bush of Sydney, New South Wales (comparable in latitude to Los Angeles, but much wetter) and transforms into a pastoral world straight out of Tolkien. Jutting hills and meandering rivers, all splendidly lush and eye-rubbing unbelieveable in beauty. Rolling along on roads with signs pointing the way to charming and exotic sounding places such as Dungog, Murrurundi, Quirindi, Kookabookra, Boonoo Boonoo and Texas! My first sighting of kangeroos behind a road stop. There were three of them and two of us, playing a game of 'keep the distance safe'.
We've been in Brisbane for 6 days now and have eaten ourselves to within an inch of our lives.
Trish, Tom's mother, is a gourmet by profession and produces delicious things out of thin air, rather like an alchemist turning dross into gold. Their house on Carlyle Street was full of visitors for Christmas morning and after breakfast we fell upon the many packages under the twinkling tree. Tom, Simon's son, was ecstatic to find that his gift was an iMac.
Simon successfully transported it as carry-on all the way from the U.S. We are now iMac widows as Tom is absorbed by his new toy. His pet rat, Djellibabi (called 'Bub'), is consigned to his cage, whereas before he had free run of Tom's room. Wouldn't want to short out the iMac and the iRat with the gnawing of little teeth.
Deborah and Andy live in a magical land, called Nimbin, New South Wales, to the south of Brisbane. They have a 14 acre working farm and design and produce 'spectaculars' (circus events). Ollie, the sesquipedalian (lover of 6 foot long words) mountaineer in the family, is Trish's husband.
Little Jack, the Pokémon expert, is their progeny. Jack is the only family member born in Australia, the rest are English.
Our Christmas dinner table was a festive one. Party crackers and poppers dispensing streamers everywhere and so much decadent food that a nap was required between courses.
Ordinarily, the summer here is quite hot and humid. I was psychically prepared for this and brought only the skimpiest of clothes as armor. About the time of our arrival there was a typhoon of great magnitude on the west coast of Australia and has made for unseasonably cool weather here. It has been a delight to search for something cozy to wear, when I was prepared to suffer in the humidity. We are planning a new year's camp out on Stradbroke Island. Originally, we had planned to return to Sydney for the spectacular fireworks over the harbor. However the long drive north to Brisbane caused us to reconsider the folly of that plan. A pristine beach with the celestials as our fireworks has won out over the allure of the madding crowd. If the lights do go out, I'd much prefer being stranded on a beach to a traffic jam.
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