Since arriving in Eatons hill to dog sit on 19th December I've been on a lot of buses. The lost underwear is not bus related. More of that later.
Eatons hill is a suburb north west of Brisbane. Having no car as part of this dog sit, (I was spoilt in Ormeau) and there being no train station near here I've had to rely on buses to get around.
There is a local IGA supermarket within walking distance but supermarkets don't sell alcohol. I arrived on Thursday evening and set off to the city the following morning to meet Jill, Keith, Linda and Ken. We had a very good trip by ferry up to the mouth of the river and stopped for fish and chips for lunch. Jill and Keith were going back to Linda and Ken's to have a cold beer and I was very jealous. Jill, realising the seriousness of my predicament, said they would come round on Sunday with wine and beer. It's lovely to have friends who care about your alcohol intake!
The following day I got a bus to a shopping centre about 20 minutes away. I'd intended finding a swimming pool but it was a lot further from the bus stop than I'd anticipated and on getting there I was told it was $20 to go in for a swim!! I made much better use of the money by buying wine and beer back at the shopping centre. On the way home the bus driver apologised for making a detour by mistake and when I asked him if he was going to Sarabande Drive he admitted he didn't know the names of the roads. The company had just started running that route and he said as long as he could see bus stops with 338 on them he knew he was on the correct route!! At this point I was the only passenger on the bus and from the map on my phone I could see it was heading away from where I wanted to get off! He did know that the route did a circuit and went back along another road. This turned out to be the correct one. Phew!!
Best of all he let me off right outside the house and I didn't have to walk from the bus stop.
Another day a driver called out "Do I turn right here?" There were two of us on the bus. The guy had headphones on, so I said "Yes, I think so, at the traffic lights" I was an expert by then as I'd done that journey twice before. Any longer here and they'd probably have me driving the buses!
The most amazing thing is they have public transport running on Christmas Day! I went to Cathy's for lunch at Mooroka and although it took nearly 2 hours I got there! Luckily I took a book as I had 50 minutes to wait at Roma street on the way back.
At the Christmas lunch there was Cathy, Mary Brettell (her sister) Elly a student from Ecuador and 2 Queensland cops, Lisa and Nick. The fact they were dressed in full uniform with gun, taser, radios etc is not that odd when you know that Cathy works in admin at Moorooka police station. After lunch they went off in their car with its red nose on the bonnet and reindeer antlers on the roof. Half an hour later there were 2 more police at the door. They just popped in to say hello and they flashed the car lights and let off the klaxon when they left. Any of the neighbours having a post Christmas nap would have had a surprise.
Talking of surprises. When I arrived Lyn dropped me off and came in to say hello to Guy as we'd been over to meet the dogs a couple of weeks earlier. He mentioned that he would feed the snake before he left. SNAKE? What snake?? In a cage by the front door was a carpet python! We'd walked past it but not taken any notice as it looks like a display cabinet. He fed it a mouse, said I didn't need to do anything to it and that was that. At first it hung around on a ledge at the top of the cage. One day as I walked past it dropped to the ground (inside the cage) with a loud thump. Aaaargh!!!!
It's been inside its box now since about 22nd December. I'm glad I can still see part of it as I wouldn't like to think it was on the loose!
The dogs are 2 female Staffordshire bull terriers. Very sweet when they are asleep or sitting quietly but they are very needy and follow me so that I turn around and fall over a dog everywhere I go. They get very excited when I return home after being out for a few hours and the small one starts nipping if you pat her, so I just ignore them and gradually they calm down.
They have a thing for bras though. One day I noticed that my only spare bra had gone missing. I'd washed it, put it on the line and couldn't remember taking it in. The other clothes were still on the line so I couldn't understand where it had gone. As it very windy most days I thought it had blown over a fence. As the house next door is empty I decided that it had gone for good and when I went to the shops I bought 2 new bras, thinking I'd then have 3.
I found the missing bra next day in the dogs' bed. Very well chewed! Later that day having washed the other one and hung it up I found it in the garden. Again, very well chewed. All washing stays inside from now on. They would have had to jump quite high to get them off the rotary line.
I'd been told by Guy that there had been a huntsman spider living in the bathroom but he'd sprayed the house and not seen it recently. It had gone down the plug hole in the bath. The bath has now got a plug in and because it's not small enough to fit properly I've got a large bottle of shower gel sitting on the plug. That huntsman will have to be very strong to get past that!
I found a nice swimming pool at Chermside where it is $5 to swim.
Chermside shopping centre is a huge place. Everyone apart from me seemed to be spending hundreds of dollars and carrying loads of bags. There was a queue to see Father Christmas and a queue to get to the jeweller's stall. I then heard that the place was staying open all night to help people spend even more! Madness!
So another chapter comes to an end. Tomorrow I fly south to Newcastle for a couple of days with Wendy and David and then we are all going to Sydney for New Year, or New Years as everyone says here. How many New Years are they expecting?
It's hot and humid here. Tomorrow it's going to be 37C so I'm glad I'll be getting out of here and going to Sydney where it's 26C.
I fly to New Zealand on 2nd January. My next blog will be from New Zealand!
3 months gone already. I'm half way through my trip.
