Jindalee

Jindalee is the home of Paul & Janice, Jasmin and Jack McCormack, who kindly put us up (or was that put up with us) for our first week in Brisbane!!! Janice is Amber’s friend Mel’s sister and has lived in the suburb for many years.

I’d not met Janice and Paul before but was kindly welcomed into their lovely home. Even before we’d said ‘hello’ to Jasmin she’d already given us a big hug and told us she’d been excited about our arrival for ages and had told everyone at school.

The family were introduced to Bill and Mulligan and were very taken by them.

 

A downstairs double bedroom with adjoining bathroom was home for the next week whilst ANZ Bank also adopted us and provided with banking cards. (Top tip – don’t go with HSBC, not enough branches and the application process takes forever before you leave the UK!)

Jindalee is a small suburb of Brisbane approx 30mins by bus from the city centre that is served by a school, swimming pool, local sports field as well as a wonderful park by the Brisbane River. Without any disrespect for Jindalee, it is very similar to Neighbours’ Ramsay Street!

Each home is different although follows a similar design with slanted roof, driveway, small front lawn and by far the most impressive from our perspective a mail box. Amber & I were taken by the array of different designs; some wrought iron in a gothic style with others wooden in a straightforward post and parcel combination.

Another oddity about Jindalee that fascinated us was that there is a lack of pavements in the smaller roads so it feels as though you’re walking on someone’s front garden. This is especially true if they’ve got a particularly well landscaped lawn.

We saw avocado trees, possums (after a night time hunt), gallahs (not the flaming kind I’m reliably told!!!),

yellow crested cockatoos,

cacti (a feral weed accordingly to the local bushcare group), aggressive magpies and heard toads and crickets at night.  Quite an eclectic mix and definitely not something we could expect in Alum Chine. Unsurprisingly it took us ages to get anywhere due to the sights and sounds that were in the area.

One of our first adventures was to the Jindalee Correctional Centre, “Oh no”, I hear you cry, “What have they done?!”. Rather than getting into trouble we were actually off to see our first kangaroos who sit in front of the local prison. It was almost a typical Australia photo – one of kangaroos in front of a facility for convicts….I’m sure there’s a word for it but cannot think of it!!

The grey kangaroos are much smaller than their red cousins and are much more common.

The famous yellow and black kangaroo warning signs were about in force advising motorists of potential collisions but unfortunately whilst we were there one ‘roo wasn’t so lucky. I wonder why they don’t put yellow and black car warning signs for the kangaroos?! It seems a little one-sided…hehe.

To help out during our stay with the McCormacks, we took over babysitting duties for a morning. Taking funny face photos,

playing with Brio,

colouring and drawing princes and princesses and making cheesecake replaced sightseeing and walking around Botanic gardens. A nice change.

Both the children had us in stitches all week with Jack’s boundless energy and relentless focus on a hopeful purchase of a green digger and ongoing questions about En-ger-land to Jasmin’s continued efforts to walk her to school and to go to her classes with her. Diplomatically we had to decline!

We won’t miss as much :) the early wake up calls from the sound of elephants getting ready for the day above us…

Due to the children’s routines, lunch is normally served around 11 so it was another first to have a public BBQ complete with home made patties and salad by the river for Sunday lunch.

It was a first that will be fondly remembered for not only the lovely food but with Jasmin taking over the camera and filling a memory card in about 15mins. Some of her photos are below.

 

Outdoor BBQs are provided by the council at many locations around not only Brisbane but all over Australia embracing outdoor living and making the most of the sunshine. Some are powered electrically and others by gas so we’ll be keeping an eye out for them along the way.

My first proper fire-twirling session took place on the driveway which I was delighted with and am now considering purchasing my own kit!!!

ANZAC biscuits (similar to flapjacks) were baked and shared with Jasmin’s friend Darcy but eaten rather quickly by a certain Jack and more funny face photos were taken.

and I even managed to get a natural shot of Paul drinking a cuppa (well almost natural!!!)

All in all we were in Jindalee for 9 days and had such a lovely time. It was good to see Janice, Paul, Jack and Jasmin and we were sad when it was time to leave. We’ve promised them another cheesecake and a rhubarb crumble if we’re allowed to come back again next May :)

Lots of love to the McCormack family x

Bris-Vegas

Or Bris-ney Land or Brissy.

Today we’ve ventured into the city to explore – but not without Janice & Paul setting us the “Brisbane Challenge”. The challenge consisted of 10 things :

• Find the Windmill
• Take an artistic photo of the Clock Tower
• Find the Vegetable Strainer ball
• What is the ‘purse’ all about?
• Find the Kangaroo sculpture
• Take a photo of Parliament House
• Review the “Elephant & Wheelbarrow” pub
• Where is the Wollemi Pine?
• Find the rudest sculpture on the Nepalese temple
• Locate the Bull Horns sculpture

Armed with the challenge and the added complication of not using our Rough Guide book, the local bus took us into town. Public transport appears to be very convenient with a clear website and customer service line that gives you the connections, costs, times and local information such as ‘its past the Brisbane Boys College’. Brilliant – and the tickets allow you to go to somewhere en route as part of your journey as long as you’re back on the bus.

We utilised this by looking into Toowong where the Centrelink offices were. Centrelink are the company that would be the equivalent of the job centre and benefits office in the UK and are responsible for providing Tax File Number (a bit like the NI number, NHS number and social security number all rolled into one.) Rather unhelpfully was that its actually the Australian Tax Office (ATO) that needed to sort ours out as we’re non-residents. Must do that!

Brisbane is home to approx 1m people and named after the original Queensland Governor. It is located on the banks of the Brisbane river and as a result has many different styles of bridges that allow residents and travellers to move between north and south of the city.

One new bridge is opening in June so we’ll see that at the end of the trip. The bridges are required not only for transportation but because it’s the home of the Bull Shark – arguably more dangerous that the more infamous Great White because its equally home in fresh and salt water and eats anything…hmmmm

A & I found a free walking tour from the Visitor Centre with a youngish local chap who knew his stuff. I reckon he must have a History degree or something similar as the tour was brilliant. Three hours of non-stop facts and figures detailing the birth of Australia to the present day. The company was XXXX and would definitely recommend it to anyone who was visiting the city.

The tour took in the King George Square and the current City Hall that is undergoing a controversial 2 year refurbishment. It is said that the building is sinking much to the annoyance of the council, although it is a fact that the city is built on a swamp. The City Hall also prompts controversy due to its sculpture of the emergence of Australia that depicts the native Aboriginal culture dying out..

A visit to ANZAC Square to commemorate the Australian and New Zealand involvement in the the two World Wars was next. The beautiful calming square has many sculptures to recognise the involvement of the local New Guineans in fighting off the Japanese that prevented the likely invasion of Australia and the role Brisbane played in the command of the South Pacific War.

We learnt about the Brisbane Line; General Macarthur’s backup plan to sacrifice Australian land North of Brisbane to the Japanese should they have invaded and the sensitive way the sculptures recognise the role of the three armed forces and the number of steps up to it on two levels 19 and 18 reflecting the date of the end of WW1.

The rest of the tour took in George St Mall,

the locally revered Empire Theatre,

the old Treasury that’s now a casino,

numerous sculptures including two on our Challenge,

the eco-friendly city library and office building,

the only sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II carrying a purse,

the old red light district and its role in aiding the war effort. It went on to talk about the current political status of Brisbane outside Parliament House, the ghost stories of Queenland University of Technology (QUT),

the Goodwill Bridge and the South Bank, the site of the Brisbane Expo in 1988 that’s being redeveloped into a pleasant walking and recreational area complete with flower gardens and artificial inland beach.

The tour’s style was very focussed at the younger traveller (I feel old!) referring to General Macarthur as G-Mac and how he communicated via Facebook. It was very Australian – shortening everything, giving things nicknames – and made it an enjoyable few hours. Although it was advertised as free, it was a ‘tipped’ tour so a voluntary contribution was requested..

The remainder of the afternoon was spent completing our Challenge,

 

exploring the cultural centre and finding some food

before being picked up by Paul for some fire-twirling.

This was an incredible experience. Paul practices fire-twirling and drumming and coincided with the Full Moon so both troupes were together in a local park. At one point 25 people were fire-twirling at the same time with many more having a go with light-based poise. Both of us had a good with the lights and by all accounts our faces were a picture. It created a wave of excitement and surrealism and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – another first on the trip!

 

The day ended with a late night visit to the Mount Coot-tha Lookout that overlooks Brisbane and was the site of storage for weapons, fuel and stores during WW2.