Tag Archives: queensland

Airlie Beach and Whitehaven Beach

Life is pretty ‘beachy’. Last weekend Chris and I took in two of Queensland’s best-known beaches: Airlie and Whitehaven.

Airlie Beach is (in)famous as a schoolies (high school grad week revelers) destination. A quaint seaside village, Airlie serves as a trendy gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. With bars, restaurants, hotels and liquor stores packed along the main drag, Airlie Beach is indeed ‘heady’ as our Lonely Planet guide indicated. Speaking of Lonely Planet, they noted that Airlie is described by the locals as ‘a drinking town with a sailing problem.’

After checking in at the Airlie Beach Hotel, Chris and I caught a tour bus to Abel Point Marina to board the Cruise Whitsundays boat. Pulling out from the harbour, you can make out the houses nestled on the hillside and the seeming fleet of sailboats.

This is Chris’s ‘I’m on a boat’ pose. The French tourists really enjoyed it.

The Whitsunday Islands range from uninhabited to resort villas to tiny towns. This particular island looks divine in my opinion.

After two hours on the sea, we arrived at Whitehaven Beach. The boat dropped anchor and a water taxi ferried passengers to shore.

The sand at Whitehaven is almost pure silica. When you walk on the beach, sand squeaks between your toes, as Chris is demonstrating.

It was the perfect sand for building a sand castle, complete with a moat. Against the white sand, you could tell how pink my skin is.

Soon, I was covering up in a full-body stinger suit so that we could go swimming without injury/death.

I may have put it on backwards…and stormed the beach like Godzilla, channeling my inner Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes.

Nice Katie re-emerged shortly after, although not without ravenous hunger. On the boat ride back to shore, I devoured a sandwich and complimentary cookies. Lucky for me, the food helped to settle my stomach when we experienced quite the roller coaster ride for the first half and hour of our return trip. Overall, it was a wonderful weekend and we’re looking forward to this Friday when we travel to Hamilton Island via Airlie Beach.

Guest post: Brisbane as I’ve seen it

I’m back for another week’s guest post and we’re still in Brisbane. It seems like Katie’s determined that this won’t be my last time; I chalk it up to the intense pressure from all my adoring fans (I know you’re out there).

What was shaping up to possibly be our last day in Brisbane began with us picking up our new and frightening Queensland drivers’ licenses from the department of transport.

Greetings from South Bank

We’d gone into Leighton’s Brisbane office to meet with the HR rep that has been taking care of all my on-boarding and took a field trip to get certified to drive over here despite still looking the wrong way when I cross the streets. I don’t really understand the justification behind a lack of driving test for people who come from countries where they drive on the proper side of the street but hey, it’ll save us some time. For some reason, Katie photo came out looking like she was about to crush someone’s skull and I ended up looking (more) like the wolfman due to some strategically placed shadowing. We said goodbye to our rep after handing off the last bit of documentation to make sure the cash would finally begin to flow into my emaciated bank account and went on our way, beginning to plan our trip up the coast.

We ended up back at Bleeding Heart cafe, intent on getting some items checked off of our to-do lists. As the lady’s pointed out before, Brisbane doesn’t do the coffee-shop working culture. There was a working plug-in (one of the only places we’ve found with such a thing) and the promise of wireless access. Only the former seemed to be in working order. I’ve concluded that Vancouverites are completely spoiled when it comes to getting online away from home; either Brisbane’s citizens are exceptional at planning out when they’ll need access or they just do without. Considering what we’ve seen so far, the latter seems more likely. Whereas we’ve lost much of the distinction between personal and work time in North America, it’s alive and well here. If there’s a late-night work/coffee shop around for freelancers and the sort, it’s well hidden.

Notwithstanding my sense of entitlement to free internet, the coffee was solid and the iced-coffee-cum-milkshake Katie had looked thoroughly drinkable. I managed to start getting into some serious car researching while the lady chipped away at One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I was deeply engrossed in my internalized debate as to whether or not Volkswagen’s Golf Wagen was uglier than it’s nearest competitors when Katie, apparently reaching her limit for sitting still, insisted we begin walking. To where was no consequence – this lady was antsy.

Our wandering arrow fell onto Adelaide Street where among the mid-day throng, we found an organic-non-processed-something-or-another store and a Japanese bakery. For a minute it almost felt like we were back in Vancouver. We continued our wanderings further along, stopping briefly in front of a church to catch our breath and think about what we’d need for the next few days travelling north. This was brought to an abrupt halt when I received an email letting me know that, due to Mackay being the coolest and most popular destination on earth, there was not a single room for hire in the city and, as such, our stay in Brisbane would be extended by another ten days.

Now, I’m not complaining about more time in Brisbane; this city is a real treat. What I was disappointed about was the delay in finally getting settled into a real home again. Our apartment here is nice, but we both know that it’s a temporary stopover. It felt a little bit like a cruel tease to be on the brink of that next step, only to be told that we’ll need to take a seat for just a little bit longer.

So what did we do? We continued on, if a bit deflated. We returned home, hit the gym, watched some episodes of Samurai Champloo (almost done…), then got gussied up for a night on the town.

My watering hole from heaven

We grabbed a couple of tickets to the Poetry in Film Festival, hosted back down in the same Fortitude Valley cinema we’d been to a few nights before and decided to do dinner beforehand at a Spanish restaurant by the name of Ortiga. A few doors before the restaurant, we spotted an interesting grindehouse-esque poster promising a zombie massacre later that night. Taking a step back, I realized we’d stumbled onto the Mana Bar.

Let me explain the concept here. It’s a small-ish facility, large enough to house maybe 50 people. On the walls hang five large-ish LCD screens, a massive trophy case containing video game collectibles from through the ages, and, behind the bar, sit a dozen consoles powering those screens. You buy a drink, take it to a table, put it down, then play games all night with your fellow patrons. If someone had asked me how to design the perfect bar, this would be it.

The film festival and the restaurant were enjoyable, but returning to the Mana Bar really made my night. We met some interesting characters (as one will at a place such as this or an event such as PAX), won some, lost some, but consistently had fun. I’ve insisted that we return there on a busier night to see it in full swing. Who’d have thought that 8 PM on a Wednesday would be slow?

I’ll return for another episode of Chris Blathers On sometime after we get back to that bar.

Chris

The Weather and the Arts

The sound of balcony rain woke me. Fluttering my eyes open, I caught a glimpse of lightening behind the window shade. Counting the seconds after the flash, I finally heard the thunder. Almost 12 hours later, the storm returned with a torrential downpour and epic light show. After drenching the city and my t-shirt, the clouds cleared and a rainbow appeared. And I thought Australia was all sun and surf.

After the first shower cleared in the late morning, Chris and I ventured out to the conglomerate of arts and culture venues in Brisbane’s Southbank. Our first stop was at the Queensland Art Gallery for the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition. The show was comprehensive and captivating. Ever since I picked up a calendar featuring his work when I was fourteen, I’ve loved Cartier-Bresson’s lines, use of shadow and ability to capture the ‘decisive moment.’ It was a treat to see both his framed prints and original copies of the magazines where his work appeared.

En route to our second stop, the Gallery of Modern Art, we explored ‘The Edge’ a digital media centre for young adults, and the State Library of Queensland. Both spaces were incredibly intriguing in terms of architecture and available content/resources. The Edge was hosting a digital writing conference that I wish I could have attended. State Library of Queensland featured an area called ‘Infospace’ which housed computers, comfy work stations and ‘The Corner’ space for kids. I couldn’t help but think the libraries at UBC could take a page from SLQ.

The Gallery of Modern Art didn’t disappoint. Their exhibitions on fabric and/as art, Torres Straight, and family/ritual were informative and in some cases, awe-inspiring. The exhibit that took the cake was the Alfred Hitchcock retrospective, which featured all of his films. We watched ‘Number 17’ in a beautiful in-house theatre; the film bordered on mystery, crime and comedy. While the plot development left a little to be desired, watching the original film complete with a dodgy soundtrack and cigarette burns was highly amusing.

Apart from the art, GoMA features multiple cafes, one of which hosts high tea. Australian’s sure have civilized art galleries. I’m looking forward to taking in the permanent exhibits at the Queensland Art Gallery and checking out the galleries hosted at Brisbane’s universities.