Bus Tour Commentary

We decided (ok, I did) that we should take a bus tour of the city. There was one in our travel book that did a tour of the city plus a couple of suburbs where we are thinking of renting. Cyp has been pestering me to try and investigate some different suburbs - a good idea really, but I don't want to think of moving yet.

I really haven't seen much of Brisbane that is not near the river, so this would be interesting. We took the ferry across to downtown and walked to stop 2 on the tour (as I knew where that was). The ferry let us off at a different stop and it threw off my carefully mapped out route so we ended up walking further than I had planned. Oh well - I was trying to figure out what street to turn up when the City Sights bus pulled up to stop one - which we were standing right in front of. Maurice (the driver) hopped off and gave us a brochure. "Oh we know about the tour, we were actually trying to find you when you found us"

We hopped on - it was $35 each (book said $25 and the book is 2009 - that's quite the inflation). The tour was good - I learned a lot about the buildings I'd been walking by almost every day (on my trips downtown to pick up things). I also got a totally different perspective of how the city is laid out. On my walking tour to the Queen Street Mall, I thought I was walking away from the river, but no - I was walking across a bump (the CBD - Central Business District - is on a bump out into the river - so I usually get off on one side of the bump and walk a good ways across it to get to the store). If I'd only walked a few more blocks, I would hit the river again and a bunch of cool buildings that I'd seen from the other side of the river or Southbank as it is known. The CBD is really quite small - it's weird how I totally can't tell where north, east south and west are. I think the tour today helped a lot.

Cyp had mentioned that some of the streets in the suburbs are steep - he wasn't kidding. I felt scared at one point on the tour - I also wondered how I would push the stroller up the hill in the heat and how Cyp would bike home. It doesn't help that people have recommended that we live on the top of a hill to catch the breezes. Hmm. Decisions.

It was also weird to see how far apart and different the suburbs seem even though they are maybe 1 or 2 km apart. I also noted that there was no one out and about. New Farm is looking better all the time - flat, shops to walk to, near the river and people with kids walking around. Only problem with it is that it is far from Cyp's work oh and it's expensive.

We got off at Southbank (so Ellis could go to the waterpark) where I picked up some fish and chips. Tried the barramundi which is a local fish - it was good. Rowan enjoyed feeding the seagulls - he is such a different kid from Ellis - more of kid really. He notices things like birds, whereas Ellis notices things like Cyp's iphone, oh, and the open sign on the ice cream store, which is where the bus driver let us off.

As we had to wait for the bus right outside the convenience store (which had pictures of ice cream plastered all over it, I went in and got us all a fudgicle (paddle pop). Cyp finished his and noted that his stick said "wii" Yay! he won a wii. We were very excited.

We got on the bus again (hey - it was Maurice again - that was good timing) and continued on our tour. Noted as we got on the bus that Rowan had pooped. Sigh - at the next stop I asked Maurice if I could quickly hop off and change Rowan. Sure. Of course, it was a bit of a disaster made more so as everyone on the bus got to watch as I got poo everywhere. I made sure to conspicuously purel my hands and Rowan's too when I got back on the bus. While I was doing this - Maurice and Cyp were hitting it off. In fact, Maurice gave Cyp his card and said "call me if you need help" People are friendly here.

Cyp and I were debating where to get off when Cyp noted that Ellis had passed out - well, I guess we weren't getting off anytime soon. We did the tour again - back to the suburbs (so I could get another look), back up Mt Cootha, back to Southbank, Maurice's shift ended and we got another driver. Now we got to hear everything again but slightly different. I almost feel I could give the tour myself. We decided we'd get off at stop one - Cyp could put Ellis in the stroller and I'd carry Rowan. That worked - Ellis slept on. We walked down to the ferry terminal - noted that stop 4 of the tour was right across the street (duh) and caught the ferry home.

As soon as we came in the door, Cyp ran to the computer to find out about his wii - turns out he didn't win - you need 3 sticks -they need to spell wii console. Darn.

Ellis slept for at least another hour. I blogged, Cyp took Rowan for a swim.... I used my chinese ingredients and made stir fry for dinner. Now I remember why I don't make it anymore - kids don't like stirfry.