THURSDAY JUNE 6 BRISBANE

We were woken at 5:30am with breakfast of muesli and raisin toast and arrived at Roma St Station on time at 6:30.  This train heads back to Sydney at 7:30 and as our train on July 4 arrives at 7am  we made sure we knew how to get from Platform 10 to Platform 2 in a hurry.  If we are late we will have to catch a bus to Casino at 3pm.

We had to pay $8 to put our luggage in a locker, then walked up to Platform 10 and through to the Roma Street Parklands which are world famous for their design.  We had until 1:25pm to explore Brisbane and we spent a very interesting couple of hours in this park.

We talked to one of the friendly gardeners who had been working there since 2001 and he told us it was built on the goods marshalling yards site, like Darling Harbour in Sydney.  He was very proud of his work, but quite fearful that Campbell Newman  would intervene and reduce funding for the project as "he hates public servants".  Peter Beattie started it off at a cost of $57 million and it is a magnificent credit to Brisbane.  There are so many tracks, creeks, lakes and garden beds.  We liked this little corridor of steam through the bamboo.

Steam was pumping out of little nozzles on the ground.

At the top of the hill there were several small, discreet war memorials.  First one was for the Vietnam veterans.

Another memorial celebrated the rats of Tobruk and the naval vessels which supported the siege.

The third one was for Gallipoli and included the moving speech made by Ataturk in 1934  as a gesture of reconciliation.

This sculpture was made for the Brisbane World Expo and may in fact be a convoluted Moebius strip (having only one surface in topological terms).  I tried to follow the underneath surface around all the twists and ended up on the upper surface.

Whenever we do a walk we expect to see a brush turkey, of course.

There was also a very nice fountain in the lake.

And the biggest stepping stones across a creek that we have ever seen.

One of the banksias was afflicted with a disease.  Is it Myrtle rust?

At the centre of the Park was Colin Campbell Place.  You may remember him if you ever watched Gardening Australia.  This section was alive with colourful flowers all year long.

As we headed back to the station for morning tea, we found another sad statue of a little boy, reminding us of the one we saw in Vienna Station.  This boy had to tie his trousers up with string.

He represented children who were abused in institutions.

After morning tea we walked along both sides of the Brisbane River, bringing back memories of a similar walk with Aidan on a previous occasion.  What a pleasure to be able to walk along quiet tracks shared only with bicycles, and use two large carless bridges for crossing the river.  Outside the Museum of Modern Art we found an elephant standing on his head.  This photo does not need rotation.

We suspect the small animal in the foreground had something to do with his downfall.  Is it a mongoose?

Could it be from Rudyard Kipling's Just So stories?  What do you think?

Another sad sculpture was a sandstone suitcase on South Bank.

It referred  to the experiences of three refugee people of recent times.

Back at the Station we collected our luggage and boarded the Sunlander in our Queenslander carriage.
The Queenslander class has all meals provided, a wash basin in the cabin, but shared toilets and showers.  There are only 14 beds in our carriage and we seem to have three staff to look after us.  We received a toilet bag with cosmetics, creams, etc, and a dressing gown and scuffs as part of the deal.
They gave us a welcoming drink and high tea at 1:45.  Dinner at 7pm was a three-course delight.  We are very comfortable and happy with this train.