We’re still reluctant to leave the boat to her own devices during tide changes when all hell breaks loose in the anchorage so we plan our trips ashore for the few hours each day when the boats have settled down and everyone’s playing nicely.
Brisbane continues to charm us. It’s doesn’t have the artsy style of Melbourne or the vast scope of Sydney but the small size is more conducive to those of us who tour and shop on foot. In fact it’s so walkable that we haven’t even bought a public transportation card since everything we want we can find within a few blocks.
We stopped at the tourist office for a walking tour map but the elderly gentleman manning the desk couldn’t find one and actually discouraged us from our quest. “It’s only interesting if you like architecture,” he told us. We said we do like architecture and that’s why we want a walking tour, to look at the buildings. I don’t think he believed us and he spent a long time leafing through various binders for something that looked like a walking tour map, ultimately with no success. We are on our own.
We bit the bullet and bought a new Sodastream machine. Our old one is fine but for some strange reason the replacement CO2 tanks sold in Australia and New Zealand use a different thread from the rest of the world. We got our tanks replaced in New Zealand only to learn they won’t work in our machine. For the past year we’ve done without, but we’ll be in Oz for another year and we figured we’ll just get a new one and store the old one until we’re back in the World of Common Threads.
We also found a store that sells the reusable produce bags and beeswax wraps that have been on my list for ages. I’m doing what I can to reduce the one-use plastic onboard. The reusable produce bags are wonderful and so far every cashier or farmers market who sees them wants to know where they can get them, too. They live in a little pouch in my backpack so I never have to use those plastic bags in the supermarket ever again. The beeswax wraps replace plastic wrap. Our previous owner left so much plastic wrap onboard that we haven’t bought any in five years, but still, I hate to use it to wrap cheese or black bread, which is pretty much all I use it for. Now we can almost eliminate plastic wrap from EV’s waste stream. Baby steps.
Any city that has a luthier right on a main street is ok by us. Normally we’d stop in to chat but today the shop was closed.
When we got back to the dinghy dock we saw that Blackwattle had moved from the anchorage to a pole mooring. Jack thinks the owner is a single hander and we’re impressed that he could tie up bow and stern alone in these swirling currents. We’re also bummed that he moved because now we’ve lost our sight line that assured us we’re not sticking out in the ferry channel during certain tides.
Our day ended with sundowners in the cockpit. We can’t see the sunset from where we are but the golden light reflected on the rocks at Kangaroo Point is beautiful enough for now.
