Chapter 50 - The ACTUAL Toowoomba Expedition

In which our hero and her friend finally actually make it to Toowoomba, not like the first attempt where they only got as far as Mt. Tambourine ... 

So now the date is September 21, in other words immediately following the previous day's adventure to UQ. I haven't yet told you about the first expedition to Toowoomba, but I will. Basically, Rachel and I had a plan to go there, because it's supposed to be really nice. We took a slight detour to see Mt. Tambourine, and got distracted for the rest of the day. That was a few weeks previous. This time we actually had a goal, which was the Toowoomba Flower Festival (it was springtime, after all). And we had two other friends of Rachel's with us, so we couldn't just go off on our own tangents.

So off we went, departing my place at around 9:00 a.m. It's a couple of hours drive, so we arrived just before lunch time. First we stopped at a city park, where there was some music and ice cream and flowers and flower flavoured ice cream. We walked around a bit, got ourselves a map of the prize-winning gardens, and made a plan for the day. The final thing was to be back to the central city park for the parade at like 3:00.

But first, we saw some of the lovely things to see in the park where we were.

The lovely view. Toowoomba's on the top of a bit of a hill, hence the lovely views.

More lovely view, but with close-up trees.

Walking along the path at the edge of the lovely view.

Statue of a dog named 'Puppy' that was the mascot of the town band.

Garden and railings of the little restaurant that was nearby.

Picture of a lady taking pictures of a rose.

15000-ish km to Ottawa. 

Now most excitingly, remember in the previous bit of writing how I mentioned flower flavoured ice cream? Well, we all had some. Here is the little banner explaining what it was:

And here is the ice cream itself:

It was delicious. Not too sweet, just perfect. I highly recommend it. Also, just as a point of interest and trivia, the wattle, which is the yellow one on the banner, is the reason that the national Australian colours are green & gold. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

So here is the plan we made for the day: We'd go see the prize-winning garden, get a picnic lunch at a grocery store and head to the Japanese Garden for a picnic, then head back into town for the parade, which we planned to catch the end of as it came into the park.

What follows are the pictures of the prize-winning garden.

It was really really quite lovely. Heaps of flowers, lots of different colours, beautifully manicured lawn. Just great. And a little fairy house as well.

We then headed to Coles to get picnic. We got a half a roasted chicken, some cheese, some rolls, strawberries, chips, and ginger beer. Then we headed to the Japanese Garden, which is associated with the local university. I very much enjoyed that bit, because I love Japanese gardens.

The view from our picnic spot.

A picture of Rachel taking a picture.

Here is part of the local university. Probably the University of Toowoomba. I can't remember.

Here are some things we saw while walking from the car to the park.

I love these houses. Sort of wide and flat, with wrap-around verandas. I believe this is what's called the 'Queenslander' style. 

There were very old trees lining the streets. I could imagine when the trees were younger, and the roads were made of dirt, and the people went along them in horse and buggies.

This is the fabulous thing, see. They clearly paved the roads around the trees, rather than cutting them down to the road fit. It's great. It makes for a bumpy curbside though. 

Bowls club. (What we would call lawn bowling).

A beautifully naturally shaped tree.

When we got closer it looked as if it could be climbed like a ladder.

When we arrived at the parade spot the floats were already coming in, so we quickly found a place to stand and watch. It's funny how parades are basically the same everywhere. It was called the Flower Parade, so I assumed there would be lots of flowers, but it was pretty much just a parade.

Alice in Wonderland theme .... 

White and black and red suit and stick. Don't know what exactly this was. But some of the garb was familiar.

Pipe band...

Doggies ... 

Old cars ... 

The local Fighting 501st. 

They're basically an expensive Star Wars costume club.

Princess Leia Marching Band

Girls with giant balloon flowers were spaced periodically throughout the parade.

Giant teddy ... 

Peter Pan ... 

Pirates ... 

More old cars ... 

Derby Girls. Kind of hard to skate on the grass though.

Drum corps ... 

We passed this old taxi like three times on the way there, so then of course I had to take it's picture, once we knew it's purpose.

And then my phone went flat, so I didn't get a picture of the Doctor Who float. Luckily Rachel did:

Chapter 49 - First Trip to UQ

In which our hero is struck by how similar one physics building is to another physics building ... 

Timestamp: September 20, 2013

Location: Griffith University

The Story: Our intrepid hero and her friend find themselves with a free Friday afternoon. Their other friend, previously known as Their Friend the Friendly Giant, and heretofore referred to as Glen, because it's quicker to type, informed them that he was heading up to the University of Queensland on the train to meet with his UQ Physics Club friends and watch 'Contact'. So our hero and her friend (the first one, not the one we're calling Glen) (OK. We'll just call him Christian, because this is getting confusing). So Christian and I decided to go with him. Because it would be fun, and I'd never seen UQ before. So off we went. We took the bus to Helensvale, then met Glen on the train. Then we got off at Park Road Station, and, at my insistence, walked to UQ, because I like walking, and seeing things when I'm walking. It was a lovely walk. Here are some pictures:

Glen quite validly didn't want to walk, because he was carrying a luggage thingy for his sister's scooter. Also, that's not how he walks. He was getting a drink from a fountain, which the locals call a 'water bubbler'. 

Some lovely trees and shadows.

Some more lovely trees.

The little pedestrians and buses only bridge to cross the river to UQ.

So now prepare yourselves people. UQ is a bit older than Griffith. So while you've enjoyed pictures of Griffith's lovely modern angles and colours, you'll now have to brace yourself for old-timey sandstoney-ness. Behold:

Ta-daaaaaaaa! Isn't it lovely? I think it is.

Lovely big open space that's probably called 'The Quad', or some such.

More of the same lovely big open space. Those arches remind me of that scene in 'Chariots of Fire' where they race around the courtyard before the clock strikes twelve.

Look Annie! Rocks!

oooOOOOOooooh! School of Earth Sciences!

Closer up of the Geology building doorway. I first read, due to the shadows, 'Scientia et abore', which my brain translated to 'knowledge and trees'. Which makes no sense for a geology building, also it doesn't say 'et', also 'trees' is probably 'arbore'. It actually says 'scientia ac labore', which is probably 'knowledge through work', or something to that effect.

We then continued on to the physics building, and went inside to the Physics Tea Room, where the physics people hang out and there's a fridge and a hot water thingie for making tea. There we met Glen's sister Dana, with whom we went on a food finding expedition to find some food to eat. Then we came back, and went upstairs to watch 'Contact'.

Here is what the physics building looks like on the inside:

Christian about to enter the Physics Tea Room.

Eeep! Spidah!

I think it looks rather a lot like Western on the inside.

You see? Brass hand rails and whatnot? And doors and things? Just like Western.

Here's a few exciting things we saw on our food finding expedition:

Bush turkey!

Walking along the archway thingies.

The physics building sign. We tried to go to the physics museum, but it was closed. We saw the Pitch Drop Experiment, though. That's pretty cool. You can watch it live here: http://smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment

Then, to the bogglement of all our minds, Dana gave Glen a piggy back. 

Then Glen gave Dana a shoulder ride. They're blurry because they're moving, and inside, where my phone doesn't do very good pictures. Also, I'm pretty sure Dana thought she was going to fall off. 

And lastly, here's the hot water thingie for making tea:

Get it? Bernie? Get it? It's a very clever pun.

Chapter 48 - The Epic Hail Storm That I Haven't Told You About Yet

In which our hero is conveniently under cover during an epic storm, she does some arts and crafts with the boys, Coco gets up to mischief, and Glen chills with his hoes ... 

... also Schoolies ... 

So one day, right. Christian says "We haven't hung out in a while, lets get a coffee", which of course for me means hot chocolate or something else that's not coffee. We made a plan to meet at the Westfield around 4, I think. So come 2:30-ish I decided to head down because the sky was looking a bit grey, and I didn't want to get stuck in a storm half way there. Here's a picture of a lovely red flowering tree with the grey skies in the background.

When I arrived at the shopping centre I decided to have a browse through Woolies. I can't remember what I was looking for. I think it was potential camping food, because at the time there was a camping plan for this week, which has since been cancelled. While walking up and down the aisles I overhear two women saying something weather, and that must be the rain they were hearing, which caused me to pause and notice the sort of white noise that was going on in the background. So I went to a door to the outside, and sure enough it was dark grey outside, and absolutely bucketing down.

After watching it for a bit I went back to Woolies to continue browsing. No sooner had I re-entered the store than the white noise suddenly increased in volume rather a lot. So I went back out to look, and it was hail. Lots of hail. Blowing in the doors, which were about 20m away from the edge of the awning. It was ridiculous, and I was thoroughly thankful that I was inside.

Hail blowing in the doors.

Woolies started leaking.  There is a panel of windows just above the store entrance, so that's probably where the water came from.

Just outside, but still under the awning thingies.

Again, just outside. Madness.

Here is a video to demonstrate the sound:

So eventually I met up with Christian, and the storm died down, and we hung out and had dinner. Then, since we were back near Uni, we decided to drop in on my friend Vash, just to say hi, and see if he wanted to go to a movie later. After some sitting around and talking it turned out Christian didn't want to go to a movie, and the other two of us were going to miss the one we wanted to see, because there was about two minutes till it started. So Vash decided he wanted a kebab, and his favourite kebab place was down in Surfer's. When we got there we noticed strangely large amounts of people for a weekday night, and then there was some raucous boys chanting something that sounded sort vaguely school and/or sports related. Then we came to a horrible realisation: Schoolies was on. Now, I don't know much about it, exactly. Atmosphere-wise it's quite similar to "Spring Break", at least, I would imagine, having never been to "Spring Break". Except that instead of college kids it's "School Leavers", aka high school graduates. Apparently the Gold Coast Schoolies is like THE Schoolies to be at, so people come from far and wide. Maybe it's the only real Schoolies. I don't know. Anyway. At first it wasn't that bad, but then, after being there for just about an hour, probably less, I saw two chaps escorted away in handcuffs, one girl fell over on the sidewalk and vomited in no particular order, and just as I was walking past two girls having what seemed like a normal conversation the one head-butted the other in the teeth. Charming. Luckily, that was just as we were leaving.

Surfer's Paradise at night. There's neon lights on the palm trees.

And this is the madness of Schoolies. Absolutely insane.

The pile of hail the next morning outside my room. The kids had built a sort of  hail man, but it melted slightly over night.

The deck the next morning. 

The next day we went down to Pacific Fair to do some shopping. In the JB HiFi, which is basically Best Buy or whatever, I saw this in the "France" section of foreign films. It's Starbuck, starring Patrick Houard. It's about a lovable loser named David Wozniak who donates to a fertility clinic and twenty years later finds out he has 533 kids. Sound familiar? Well, when the previews for Delivery Man starring Vince Vaughn started appearing a little while ago, I thought that story line sounded familiar. It's about a lovable loser named David Wozniak who donates to a fertility clinic and twenty years later finds out he has 533 kids. It sounded familiar because I'd read the synopsis of Starbuck on the TIFF program last year. Also, FYI, it's from Quebec, not France.

Now, as promised, here's Coco:

... climbing out of the dishwasher ... 

... playing in a towel ... 

BUSH TURKEY!

 The local public libraries were doing a thing with activities and whatnot all November for "Doctor Who Month". One of the activities was to make a TARDIS mobile phone sock. So Glen, Christian, and I went to the Nerang library to do that. And here they are with their works in progress:

Christian looks so dashing because he's just come from work, where they have to look good.

And lastly, Glen and his hoes.

Did I say hoes? I meant hose. Tee hee hee.

Chapter 47 - Doctor Who Day and Related Situations

In which our hero relays some recent interesting events, then will go back in time later ... 

Greetings, gentle reader. I have a lot to catch up on. There's been lots of exciting and interesting things.

I've decided it will be easiest to start from recently, then go back in time when there's time. The most recent exciting thing was Doctor Who Day. Now as you all know, Doctor Who Day is November 23, which has just recently passed. To mark the 50th Anniversary of the original first ever broadcast back in 1963 there was a 50th Anniversary episode that aired at the exact same time all over the world. Since it was on at something like 7:50 p.m. in the U.K., that means it was on at 5:50 a.m. in Queensland. We, the newly formed Doctor Who Club (GU WHO), made a plan to book a lecture theatre for that morning from 2 a.m. to watch some episodes or whatever and then watch The Day of the Doctor, the 50th Anniversary episode. It turned out we couldn't actually watch it live because there was no live online stream, so we waited till it was over and watched it on ABC iView, which is the ABC "watch it later online" thingie. It was absolutely epic. Here are some pictures.

Someone brought chocolate Daleks to share. They were a stack of Oreos,  chocolate icing, the black bits are fondant, and there's a sort of Viva Puff thing on top. I can't remember what they're called here. It was delicious, but it made me want a glass of milk, which I didn't have.

Some lovely foliage outside the lecture theatre at 7:01 a.m. That's the library behind. 

A bird hanging upside down from a light fixture and eating the bugs caught in the cobwebs.

I realise only one of those is really a Doctor Who related picture. Oh well. I was too distracted with the awesomeness of the show to take other pictures.

Because we'd booked the room for 2 a.m. we thought we should actually be there then, so Glen collected Christian and me from our respective homes at approximately 1:45. This meant that I woke up at 1 a.m., which is slightly nuts. But hey-ho. So it goes. It's only the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary once. So we got to Uni at about 2:30, and got the room unlocked, and began attempting to raise a live TV broadcast. As I mentioned earlier, it didn't work. When the clock said 5:52, and it still wasn't working, we decided to watch Brian Cox's "The Science of Doctor Who" until we could raise the desired episode on iView. It was a good way to kill time, and highly informative. Eventually we got the anniversary episode on, and it was awesome. Like, really, really, a lot.

Now, as an added bonus, this same episode was being shown in cinemas later in the day. I had not planned to go, as I was going to go to an Indonesian Christmas celebration with my new friend Maria. (You may remember her from the Mt. Warning expedition that I haven't told you about yet.) But, however, and so forth, Christian accidentally slept through the first viewing so he wanted to go to the cinema one. I didn't, because it cost a lot. So he offered to buy me a ticket as an early Christmas present. So we went, and it was awesome, and in 3D. It was down in Robina, so after the show we hung out a bit at the Robina shopping centre, then took the train back to Helensvale. Here are a few things I saw while waiting for the bus to the train station:

It's a bit hard to see with the glare, but this is a poster for Coast Australia, hosted by Neil Oliver. Starting on  December 2. On the History Channel. Which requires Foxtel. Which I don't have. Bah. If you haven't watched Coast you should. It's very interesting.

Here's a weird sort of chicken thing that was snooping around the bus stop.

Now as we were waiting for the train we noticed some pretty intense looking clouds. When I got back to Helensvale, there were these other intense looking clouds in the other direction. So naturally I assumed there was another epic storm on it's way, like the one with the hail that I haven't told you about yet.

As I walked home, though, I noticed wetness and water running down gutters and so on, so I assumed it had already rained. Turned out it had, and also hailed. And I missed it, which is OK, because while the hail makes one marvel at the awesomeness of mother nature, it's also very loud.

Ominous mountain of clouds. Thought it was a storm coming, but turned out it was a storm going.

Here's the other interesting thing, too. That day, the 24th, was Glen's birthday. He's a huge Doctor Who fan. So on Saturday, the 23rd, which was actual "Official" Doctor Who Day, I went shopping for an appropriate birthday card. I found myself in the ABC Shop, where they sell Doctor Who Stuff, because they show Doctor Who on ABC. So I duly acquired a Doctor Who pop-up card, and when checking out the lady offered me some trivia sheets, which if filled out correctly and returned by end of business on Sunday would cause the entrant to be entered into a draw for a Doctor Who prize pack. So I got three: one for me, one for Glen, and one for Christian. We all filled them out on Sunday morning, and took them back to the shop. Then on Monday, just before noon, I received a call saying I'd won. Below is pictured the prize pack. It looks like a lot of stuff, but it's just a Doctor Who Annual, a Topps Alien Attax card collecting binder, one pack of cards, and some papers. If anyone actually plays this game they can have the binder and the cards. I'm keeping the Annual.