Fall in Brisbane - May 6, 2006

The other day I had to laugh as I looked at the weather forecast. Every day: 25 degress C and sunny. (For those of you who work in Farenheit, I think that's about 77 degrees.) It has been absolutely glorious. It's perfect for bike riding, walking and tennis. The only drawback is we are seriously lacking water in the dams and it looks like the water restrictions will ratchet up a notch soon. At the moment, we aren't noticing the water restrictions too much. You can only use your hose on assigned days at certain hours and you can't wash your car or hose down your patio.

We have had yet another holiday with May Day. Elliott is loving these 4 day school weeks. We took our bikes out to the Eastern side of Brisbane and went on a lovely ride between Wynnum and Manly. They have a bike/walking path that goes thru wetlands and by the coast. There are beautiful views of Moreton Bay and the islands off the coast. We saw an interesting road sign of a manatee. It looks like ones we've seen for Kangaroo Crossing and Koala Crossing. I think the manatees go under the bridge, not go over the road, but who knows with these Australian animals. We think we should start a gallery of wierd animal roadsigns and see how many different ones we can come up with.

We also rode along the river in Brisbane. There are miles of cycle paths that are heavily used. In fact, there are traffic jams along the route in the morning because so many people commute into town on their bikes. We rode out to the "floating walkway" - a section of the path that juts out over the river. It was very fun and we stopped at the Botanical Garden in town for lunch on the way home. We have many more areas to explore and would like to cross the Story Bridge on our next venture.

We spent one day on Bribie Island. It is one of the few islands that has a bridge across from the mainland. It makes an easy trip because you don't have to worry about the ferry schedules and all that. The beach there was very nice and quiet. It is a good place to bring kids and have a picnic because the surf was very calm. We probably would have liked a bit bigger waves, but it's hard to find a happy medium!

This should be the last update on the house. After much back and forth with the landlord and the real estate agent, we will be staying in the house. (I think...) The pool is looking ok and the fence is just about right. The windows and screens are to be fixed to a minimum standard. The rest we just have to learn to live with. We have pushed the landlord to some sort of breakdown - we aren't sure if it's emotional or financial. So, I expect two more days of waiting in for the repair men and then it should be over. Now if I could only get Tim to buy some furniture....