Brisbane Hotels
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Brisbane
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On Saturday I headed up to Brisbane to stay with Iain & Sally. Iain used to be my flatmate in Bristol so it was great to see friends again, and as a bonus I also got my own room with ensuite, cooked meals and plenty of beer! But it wasn't all easy.... on Sunday morning we were all up at dawn because Iain was taking part in a rowing competition along the river. Sally & I sat on the river bank, avoiding the rain showers and drinking beer. The Queensland slogan may be "Beautiful one day, perfect the next", but so far the weather has been more English summer.
On Monday night I went to the Castlemaine XXXX brewery with Iain. The tour of the brewery was quite good, especially the bottling plant where we saw 1000s of bottles of beer being filled. It was quite hypnotic watching all that beer go flying past on conveyor belts. We finally ended up at the bar for the beer tasting. The brewery is the only place in the world where you can buy XXX, which was definitely one of the best beers I have tasted in Australia (not that much of an achievement!). We were only allowed one glass of XXX, so we then tried the less exciting range of XXXX lagers and a stout.
Iain works during the week so I decided to head down to Surfers Paradise for a couple of days. This is the main tourist resort on the Gold Coast and I'd heard lots about it, so I was prepared for the worst. I actually liked Surfers a lot more than I expected. The sandy beach stretches for miles, so if you walk a few minutes from the centre then you can find plenty of space. There are swimming zones and lifeguards at regular intervals so you can go swimming in safety. Perhaps the only thing I disliked was by 3 o'clock in the afternoon the towerblocks turn in to huge sundials, casting shadows across most of the beach. Surfer's is definitely a major party resort with loads of pubs and clubs, so if that is what you want then head there for your holiday and you will love it.
I headed back to Brisbane and on Thursday night we all went to see an Eels gig. I remember buying the first Eels album back in 1996, but I have never seen them live before. We were a bit surprised that it was a seated venue, but instead of a support act we ended up watching a BBC documentary film called "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives". I had no idea that the lead singer 'E' (Mark Oliver Everett) is the son of Hugh Everett III, a famous Quantum physicist, who amongst other things came up with the many-worlds theory about parallel universes. The film showed Mark trying to find out about his father and trying to understand his theory. I found the film really interesting, but some other people at the gig seemed a bit confused by the whole thing. After about 1 hour the film ended and the band came on. Actually the band only consisted of 'E' and 'The Chet', but it was an amazing performance by very talented musicians. Both Iain and I thought it was one of the best live performances we had ever seen.
Where I stayed:
Iain's House
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