Saturday May 24, 2014

A day where we don’t have to get up before dawn.  We had a nice lie-in and then chatted to Joyce about her life, job, living arrangements and her parents expectations of her.  It was really interesting and she was shocked to hear that we had a house of 1,300 square feet for the two of us.  She shared a flat with her mom and dad and recently her brother the flat was 450 square feet.  Her brother recently got married so they had more room.

We said our goodbyes to Vince, Charlene and friends who were leaving early today.

We went to the YHA to rent some bikes, unfortunately they had all been rented, but the woman told us we could walk to most of the places that we wanted to see.

I wanted to go to the Royal Flying Doctors Service Museum, which we did.  It was really interesting to see how they got started and some of the things that they do now, including primary medical care and nurse practitioners.

We climbed Billy Goat Hill for a good view of the town site during the day and then Anzac Hill for a sunset view.

After we watched the sunset, we popped in for a pint and watched some more Aussie Rules football.  One of the strangest things is that when we ask the supporters of this game, how many people were on a side, most of them couldn’t tell us.  About 16 to 18!  We eventually got a definitive answer, there are 18 people on a team on the pitch at any one time.

We had dinner and then spoke to a Scott who was on his own and about to do one of the tours.  Ralf had a good chat with Paul (the Scot), while I spoke to another Goh, from Malaysia.  He was a Phd student studying in London, England, but doing some research at Melbourne University for 3 months.  A really nice guy and told me about places to visit in Malaysia.  I really enjoy staying in hostels and camp sites, you meet really interesting people.

Tomorrow there is a market in the downtown area and then we get picked up by the airport shuttle and fly back to Brisbane at 1:00 pm arriving at 4.00 pm.