Randy continues to visit...

I think the last time I posted Randy and I had just returned from our adventure at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We went there on Sunday, so Randy still had four full days to experience Brisbane. Monday I took him for a walk across the street and along the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. I know I've talked about these before - they are about 65 feet tall and go on for about 1/4 of a mile. The cliffs are directly across the street from my apartment, so it's easy to access the river by taking a long, steep stairway straight down from here. As we were walking we came upon this guy, a blue tongued lizard, who was hanging out at the top of one of the cliffs. He was really neat!

On Tuesday I made Randy wake up early so that we could catch the train down to Surfer's Paradise to check out the beach. The ride took about an hour, but was well worth it as we got some nice sunny weather:

Wednesday was Randy's 23rd birthday, so I helped him celebrate by fixing some of my special kebabs and taking them across the street to the public grills at the cliffs. Brisbane has all sorts of lovely picnic spots scattered around the city, and there are several places with free gas grills that are for public use. It's great! There are probably 8 of them lining the cliffs, a few really nice ones in Southbank, some on the river at the base of the cliffs, and a few located in and around the city. Australians love to barbecue, which is something I like to do as well! We had a really nice meal and the backdrop was the sun setting behind the city skyline.

Thursday was Randy's last day here and also the day that I had scheduled his real birthday present, a climb over the Story Bridge here in Brisbane. The bridge was finished in 1940, five years after work began on the project. It is 3500 feet in length, and about 240 feet high at its tallest point (that's equal to a 22 story building!). The Story Bridge is one of only 3 bridges in the entire world that is open for the public to climb on, with the other two located in Sydney and Auckland. We were booked in for a night climb, and arrived at about 5:30 to begin. They go through an extensive safety check with climbers which includes a breathalyzer test and a once-over with a metal detector (you aren't allowed to bring ANYTHING up there!). We got all geared up with a jumpsuit, a safety belt, a radio/headset, a little headlamp, and a handkerchief that tucked into our suit. The climb takes about 2 hours, and was fantastic! The weather was perfect and the sun was just sinking out of sight as we got started. By the time we reached the top we could see lots of stars in the sky and were surrounded by the Brisbane skyline. Unfortunately you can only get hard-copies of the pictures they take while you're up there, so this is a picture of my picture! Sorry about the quality, but you get the idea!


After our climb we were starving, so we caught the ferry across the river to the CBD, then caught the CityCat down the river to Southbank, where we had a really great meal at a Chinese place called Obsession. These are a few pics of the city as we motored by:

and, the Story Bridge itself:


I also shot a couple videos on our CityCat ride. The first is just a look at how pretty the skyline is, the second shows you the Kangaroo Point Cliffs as they're lit up at night. I try to show you where my apartment is located in the second video, but I'm totally wrong! Ignore that part!


After dinner we took a nice walk back to my apartment along the arboretum path in Southbank. This is what it looks like lit up at night:

We also passed the Southbank beach, which I don't think I've mentioned on here yet. This is a completely man-made beach that sits just above the river in Southbank. It's actually really nice and tons of people come here every day to play! I haven't gone yet, but I'm sure I will before my time is over. At night there aren't lifeguards, but the water is nice and lit up and people were still splashing around at 10PM.

Randy hopped into a taxi this morning at 4:45AM, and I'm happy to report that I just got a text message from him that said "yay biz class, see you later!" which means that he's made it onto a plane back to San Fransisco. It was great to have my first visitor, and I hope lots of you will show up on my doorstep soon!