Kangaroo Point

When we first arrived, Jon's Mum mentioned that a family friend's daughter was studying abroad for a semester at Griffith University in Brisbane. After exchanging heaps of emails, we finally got together this afternoon to check out Riverlife Adventure Center at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane. There are rockclimbing & abseiling excursions each arvo, so Jon and I asked Lindsey if she'd like to join us. We forgot to mention that abseiling meant jumping off a cliff until she was in the car with us, but she was fine with it ~ thank goodness.

As we always do driving anywhere near Brisbane, we got lost. Finally, we found the campus and the area where we were supposed to meet Lindsey and realized we didn't know what she looked like & we didn't tell her what kind of car we were driving. After looking like complete jackasses wandering around the Uni quad, we finally found here and we were off. Except, the map Riverlife had on their website was less than descriptive. So, we accidentally drove over the Storey Bridge 10 times. Jon's head was about to spin off his shoulders he was so frustrated!! Finally, we found a ferry terminal that was a marker on the map, parked there and just walked along the river to the Adventure Center's office.

The riverfront is a gorgeous place to run, bike, rollerblade and Brissy is a gorgeous city. A lot of the other Yanks called it Bris-Vegas, but it completely reminds me of a very clean version of L.A. Everything is very new and clean looking with heaps of modern architecture.

Riverlife is in such a strange place, right on the shores of the river across the way from huge skyscrapers is are these cliffs called Kangaroos Point. Beautiful sandstone cliffs, right in the middle of the city. We climbed up to the top of the cliffs (via the stairs) to go abseiling. As we were getting our instructions as a group of men in traditional aboriginal dress just walked by with didgeridoos. I'm sure they were on their way to some culture exhibition, but to see that with a City Cat Ferry whipping by in the background was hysterical.

There were heaps of rock climbers and abseilers already there when we got there and the area is lighted, so I am sure they stayed long after we left. Donning our sexy helmets and harnesses, we prepared to jump off a cliff for the hell of it! Jon gave the belay quite a fright when he went flying down first off! He dropped so quickly he burnt a hole in his glove straight through to his hand. I followed doing pretty well if I do say so myself considering it's been a few years since I've done anything like this! Lindsey did AWESOME for her first time & only actually finding out what it was we were doing when she got in the car. An absolute natural!

After a few runs down the cliff, it was time to go up! A very zealous Jon went up first & I was his belay (hehehe.) I had HEAPS of fun with that one! It was harder to your way up than it looked, but he eventually preserved and reached the top. Lindsey flew up and back down & enjoyed a fabulous view of the city. I made it half way up, but couldn't negotiate my way around one large overhang. I was Miss-I-Have-No -Upper-Body-Strength-And -When-I-Got-To-The-Point -Where-I-Couldn't-Use -My-Legs-I-Was-Screwed. Plus, we were all starving and someone was having a sausage sizzle on one of the public bbq's on the river.

After an esoteric discussion on the fact that there is no such thing as "shrimp on the barbie," because Aussies call shrimp "prawns" and you never hear anyone say "prawns on the barbie," we drove down to Brisbane's West End to find a restaurant or cafe where our grubby-selves would be allowed to eat. We really wanted to go down to South Bank because there are so many good restaurants, but there was no way with the way we looked. The West End has lots of nice places we could dine al fresco, which was key considering the way we smelled and lots of different ethnic cuisine to choose from. Jon wanted Indian and there was no changing his mind, Lindsey was up for anything, so I just went along with it because Jon was "reminding me" that I did promise to try one new food a week. Caught on a technicality. Bugger. Indian food it is.
We order a feast, which was amazing. Both Lindsey & I were really happy that we gave it a go! It was absolutely delicious. She even liked my trying one new food a week idea that she resolved to do it as well!

Exhausted and stuffed, we dropped her back off at her dormitory and drove back up to the Coast for a well deserved sleep!