2004 - BRISBANE

MY HOME TOWN

Queensland is my home state.  Once a Queenslander, always a Qld'er.  

😊

We have the best weather and the friendliest laid back people in the whole of Australia!!   A well known Queenslander called  Jackie Macdonald who starred on Hey Hey it's Saturday which was a popular comedy show in the 70's hosted by Daryl Sommers and silly side kick puppet Ozzy Ostrich ....Jackie said "Folks are dumb where I come from", and that phrase has stuck along with Banana Benders and other such names for us Qld'ers.

The thing is, us Queenslanders are tough!   We don't really care what 'they' say!   Hey we win all of the time in the famous state of Origion match, a footy contest between Queensland and New South Wales.

We don't care if the Southern'ers come up to our state in the cold weather because our weather is pretty darned good all year round! 

We don't care if we don't do day light saving. 
Because, that means we get to party twice at Yew years!! 
😁 

And we get to sleep in whilst those in the south have wake up at some ungodly hour in the dark....
 just to go to work! pffft!

They ..... get to enjoy day light for a bit longer..... but hey!   Our weather is sooo good, that we prefer to chill with a glass of wine and enjoy the lovely balmy evenings.  You don't need more sun if you've had a ton of the stuff all day, right?!

Anyway.... I was born in the Royal Brisbane Hospital and grew up in a little town north called Kallangur.

This blog holds many fine memories that I hope will live on for my family when I am long gone.   I plan to relay some off the beaten path stuff for those adventurers who want to do something different.

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I was missing my best friend Glenys and took a short break from work to visit.  Youngest daughter Janine came along and we had some close mum & daughter bonding. 

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KOOKABURRA QUEEN PADDLE STEEMER SHOWBOAT

I love boating and cruising.  So when I visited Brissy to catch up with an old school friend and best mate, I booked us for a lunch and show on this boat.  I also arranged a meetup through Virtual Tourist with Steve who lives in Brisbane.  Since that meet, we've been best buddies and have met up numerous times since at other local and international VT meets.  

Steve, Janine & Me

My old school friend Donna & best friend Glenys.

 

Entertainment was tacky but cute 😄

Janine doing the chicken dance

Our accommodation right in the centre of the city.

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A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE.

My best friend Glennys lives in Redcliffe, a northern suburb of Brissy.  I have many happy memories of Redcliffe, spending all day at the pools, having fresh fish and chips at the beach, rollerblading, swimming at the beach, shopping barefoot (I rarely wore shoes when I was a kid).

STORY OF THE FRESH FISH

I love fresh fish!  I have good and bad memories in my development of the taste for fresh fish.  Dad was always into fishing.  Ever since I remember dad has always had a tinny (Small tin boat with small motor).  

When dad went fishing, no matter what he caught, mum would fry up and they both would revel in the wonderful taste of the fish.  Often the fish would be bream because bream is easy to catch.  I hate bream!   It has that full muddy fishy taste, not to mention the bones!!!.....    Kids hate fish with bones!!

So, early memories of fresh fish weren't so good.  I hated fresh fish!! lol.

It wasn't until I spent time with my best friend Jeanette (more about her later) that I realised not all fish tasted like bream.

We often went for a day out at Redcliffe.   Settlement Cove Lagoon wasn't invented back then.  It was just a nice beach hugged by shady mangrove dunes which were fun to play in. There was a fantastic fish and chip shop in the street behind the lagoon.  That was when I tasted the best fish ever!! crumbed.... no bones!!.... sweet tasting flesh!! OMG, I was in heaven!! 

  

I later discovered this was shark..... or hake/flake.         It tasted so much better than that crappy muddy bream.

So to me at a young age, shop bought fish and chips was so much better than fresh caught stuff.

Years later I was to discover that there are species of fresh fish that taste absolutely devine!!   Whiting - my favourite fresh fish has small bones.... but I don't care!   I will pick through those small bones to devour every sweet juicy morsel.  There are other species I love also.  More about that in my next blog.

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The highlight for me this trip was visiting the old home I grew up in.   Well we couldn't see much because of the surrounding bush.

My old house backed onto Lake Kurwongbah.  Sometimes I think back and regret that we moved when I was 16 down to Sydney to be near my brother (18 years older than me and with kids near my age).  Bro and I weren't close.

If only we had stayed in Brissy..... ??   I know dad regreted moving years later.  Hell.... we have all made dumb decisions!!.....
Forget regret.  Learn and move on.  That is life.

  

Dakabin Road

Kallangur Water Tower

The old High School

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I’ve dug up some old photos of the house, old EH Holden and you can see the shed roof which was the Jupiter 2 when we played lost in space.  And the old caravan we took our holidays in.

MEMORIES

Memories come flooding in.  Out riding all day on our push bikes, fanging the old Holden around the pine tree forest fire breaks behind the house, making cubby houses out of logs and all sorts of stuff in the bush, climbing up the tree onto the top of the shed playing lost in space, the outdoor dunny, battening down in preparation of big cyclones, hiding whilst mum and dad killed a chook for dinner, nightmares of headless chooks running around the back yard, dad and I hiding and waiting for the big bang from the spray can that we tossed in the drum fire in the back yard, spot our dog guarding the dead chook hanging off the clothes line, speeding around lakeside racetrack on our pushies, the huge old tyre swing at my mate's house down the road, school bus getting bogged and us having to walk 2 miles home, missing the school bus and walking 3 miles home, riding the pushy to Kallangur Primary School and camping and caravaning holidays.

😁

When I was 3, I wanted to go to kindy but we could not afford it.

I didn't understand this so packed my bag and left home for kindy. I was half way there and a truck driver picked me up and took me home.  Mum was beside herself with worry, but back in those days trusting people was the norm.  Everyone knew their next door neighbour and complete strangers extended a helping hand.

Another time I was on the neighbours mini bike kicking up some serious dust in the fire breaks out back.  Then I came a cropper,and broke the brake bar.  Oh dear!!  Perry and I thought it would be a good idea to stick it back on with super glue so his parents wouldn't know lol.

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We used to get 4 kids on my pushy.

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   Go figure haha.  I rode that bike everywhere.  When I first got it, it was way too big for me.  I couldn't reach the seat.  Mum and dad bought it so I could grow into it haha.   Bit like most of the clothes I got.  In fact most of the clothes mum made on the sewing machine.   When I got my first job, I went ballistic on shop bought clothes!!!

Dragsters.  Do you remember them?   That's the cool bike with handle bars that look like they come straight off a Harley Davidson.   A friend of mine had one.  Lucky her!  Here I was with my overly big bike.  So one day on the road home from school we decided to swap.   All was fine until I chucked a wabbly and fell off the harley in the middle of the road....

Not cool!!

Luckily Narangba Road was quiet and there were no cars around. Just me and my uncool look including a badly grazed knee and elbow.

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REDCLIFFE

A great day trip from Brisbane.  To get there catch the train to Kippa-Ring and a bus to Settlement Cove Lagoon on the beach.

Driving around these Suburbs where I grew up was a real nice nostalgia trip.  We visited Clontarf, Sandgate and crossed the Hornybrook Highway bridge.  I miss the old Queenslander houses with nice airy verandahs and cute fibro houses.  

Don’t miss the mudflats of Sandgate though. 😜

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BRIBIE ISLAND

We packed a picnic and headed up the road to Bribie.

I have wonderful childhood memories of this place.  A quick day trip from home to a 'nice' beach (probably when dad got a good pay check).   This was where I developed a love for the great Aussie pie and Fanta.  That was a treat!   

Back in those days Bribie was very rustic.  Once we got bogged in the beach sand.  We didn't have a 4x4.   Dad just whipped out a couple of bits of carpet from the boot, we dug a track in the sand and stuck the carpet in front of the 2 front wheels.... and voila! drove straight out.  😄 

I guess by now I should tell you that dad and I had a fantastic relationship!  I have many special happy memories.   One of which was ice-cream!  On the weekend, we would head up to the shop to grab an ice-cream.   But it wouldn't stop at one.   I would wait knowing that a second ice-cream was in order.  This was of course all secretive.   Behind mum's back.   Maybe dad was supposed to be on a diet?   Maybe he wasn't allowed to spend any extra money?   Or maybe it was just plain simple sharing something special with his daughter?   I don't know.   But to me it was a very special time.  😍 

Anyway, back to Bribie Island.  We had a great day here complete with bbq on the beach, playing with the kids and enjoying sausages and wine 😁 

To get to Bribie Island there are shuttle buses from the airport or by public transport, catch the train to Caboolture and get a public transport bus from there. 

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FUNNY STORY

My best friend when I was growing up, Jeanette Tickle (funny name hey), moved from Kallangur to a luxury house right on the beach at a place called Beachmere which is not far from Bribie Island.  Jeanette's house backed onto the beach.  Lucky her!!! Her dad was a pilot as opposed to my dad, a painter.   Mind you, these days, painters make an obscene fortune! 

Anyway, one day when I was staying over for a week during the school holidays we had a massive cyclone come in which caused localised flooding.  Beachmere is right smack in the middle of a flood zone so we were cut off from society.  That was exciting for my best mate and I because it meant that we didn't have to go back to school until the flood waters had subsided..

Finally, as we were driving back home to my place we noticed in the cow paddock (farms lined both sides of the road to Beachmere), an outback dunny.  Nothing new there.

However, the actual toilet had escaped the confines of the dunny walls and was 100m away, floating in the flood water in the middle of the field.   Well that was totally hillarious!    Funny what memories are still vivid decades later.

Following are some old photos of Jeanette and me and one where we met again when hubby and I first married and stopped off at Brissie before heading north to our honeymoon at Great Keppel Island.

~~oOo~~

OLD PETRIE TOWN

Driving past home and down Torrens Road (the road with the big hill that we used to go screaming down with 4 people on my push bike), past Lake Kurwongbah and towards Petrie, my mate Glennys and I came across an old pioneer village, Old Petrie Town.

To get here catch the train to Petrie and bus 686.

This is a nice place to visit.  Aparently it is at its best on Sunday when they have markets.

Glennys is black and her last name is Smith. 😄