The Truth is in There Somewhere

Last weekend I attended the Mind Body Spirit festival, held in Brisbane over “three magical days of self-love, wellbeing, health, and spirituality”, those three days listed in the program as Fri-yay, Saturday, and Sunday. Superlatives abounded: the stage was “magnificent”, the organisers were “thrilled”, everyone was “beautiful” and lots of things were “incredible”, which IContinue reading “The Truth is in There Somewhere”

Brisbane City Hall

The main thing I learned from my tour of Brisbane City Hall is that if things hang around for a long time two things can happen: they start to stink, or they are framed and preserved in perpetuity. Or both.

Adventures in Physics

One afternoon, a long, long, time ago, two young men were making their way back to their residential college at the University of Queensland after attending the sort of bacchanalian soiree that made university worth going to. As they stumbled through the Great Court, they saw a paver had been pulled up. They stopped toContinue reading “Adventures in Physics”

Wild Brisbane

I live in the inner city, however, my house backs onto a gully that leads down to the Brisbane River and that gully is a jungle. My back yard has a large Moreton Bay Fig Tree in it and there’s another enormous one across the road; in fact, that tree is a “Tree of Significance”.Continue reading “Wild Brisbane”

Nature Bathing in Mt. Coot-tha Botanic Gardens

When I mentioned to my SO that I was going nature bathing at Mt. Cooth-tha Botanic Gardens, his first question was, would I be getting naked. The answer was no, and although our guide, Mon, was very encouraging and accepting of whatever responses people had as a result of their experience and of how theyContinue reading “Nature Bathing in Mt. Coot-tha Botanic Gardens”

I Did But See Her Driving By

Vale The Queen. She once flew directly over my house in Brisbane. Really. In 2002 I was watching the news, they said The Queen’s plane would shortly touch down in Brisbane, we were directly under a flight path, so I ran out into the back yard, looked up, and there, directly above, was a BritishContinue reading “I Did But See Her Driving By”

The Ekka!

One sage piece of advice my mother handed down to me from her forebears was “Don’t take your baby to the Ekka“. As far as I can remember I never did take a baby to the Ekka; I certainly took small children there but probably left the baby somewhere else because it’s no fun takingContinue reading “The Ekka!”

Taking the Bus

A lot of people in Brisbane like to moan about the public transport. I’m not heavily reliant on it so I’m not impacted by its shortcomings although I know they exist. I also don’t have a disability that makes it harder to negotiate public transport, whereas I know there are significant challenges for those whoContinue reading “Taking the Bus”

Mentioning the War

War, war, what is it good for? Making movies, filling airtime on SBS before the weekend news, and museums apparently. This week I visited the Macarthur Museum in Brisbane. No one in Brisbane has ever heard of it and it’s hidden away like something you can only find if you know someone who’ll give youContinue reading “Mentioning the War”

Cedar Creek

About forty-five minutes drive north-west of Brisbane is a place where you can get away from it all and immerse yourself not just in nature, but in water so cold it’s easy to imagine it wants you to die. I once spent a whole day at minus thirty in the Canadian Arctic; that air wantedContinue reading “Cedar Creek”