Just Add Water!

[skyring]

As ever during a convention, I'm having far too good a time to do mundane things like sleep and make journal entries. How Shen does it on the road with her children is beyond me!

Yesterday was a free day before the official convention start, and it began with a great deal of hilarity over the Brazilian chap sharing the room with FutureCat and Servalan. I suspect we're going to be hearing all sorts of references to Brazilians for a while.

I got up reasonably early, made myself a cup of coffee in my BookCrossing mug and went out to taunt the locals hurrying to work in their overcoats by standing around sipping coffee in my t-shirt. It's not cold, but these Queenslanders think it is.

While waiting to cross the street back to the hostel, I ran into Steelman, another Kiwi. He was looking for Lytteltonwitch, who was wandering the streets of Brisbane all by herself. We searched for her awhile, and eventually didn't find her.

But FutureCat was eying off the train map. She wanted to take a suburban train out to one of the bayside suburbs. Didn't feel like she'd seen a country until she'd seen the coast. I assured her that Moreton Bay was wall to wall mudflats, and talked her into renting a car to go see a proper surf beach. "We'll have coffee at Surfer's Paradise" I said.

So we did. I found a hire car place in the city, did the web booking thing, and we had an hour to eat before picking it up. On the way, as she was releasing a book in King George Square, Lytteltonwitch snuck up behind her and tickled her just as she pressed the button on her camera. Great shot!

So we three wandered around the bookshops until it was time to collect our car. I'd done the normal trick of asking for the base grade model which is never available - you then get a free upgrade to the next biggest. Only trouble was that the next biggest was a small manual. Adequate in sizem but it's been a long while since I drove a manual car!

So our journey down to the Gold Coast was fairly interesting. Kangaroo-hopping came into it quite a bit. Worse, I've taught myself to drive with one foot for the brake and one foot for the accelerator, so I lived in fear that in an emergency I'd slam on the clutch and instead of the tyres screeching, it would be us.

But we made it, found a park and walked along the beach.

Friends, it was a perfect clear day, the sea and the sky were vivid blue, the sand was golden and the atmosphere terrific. Phone calls to partners at home in colder lands were made and photographs taken for posterity. It was magic. And I couldn't have been happier than to be skipping through the water's edge with two dear friends.

Lunch was on a hotel verandah, sipping cold drinks and munching on huge plates of tucker as we scanned the water for whale spouts and yachts and kayakers and swimmers. Too cold for white pointers and Brazilians.

And then home again. I don't have time to go through it all in detail, but let me tell you that it was a golden day. Especially when I parked the car without damage to it or us.

Comments

[whytraven.livejournal.com]

Sounds marvellous.

How much of a journey is it?

Perhaps I will rent a motorcycle if I go out there.