On Thursday, I went to Brisbane with my mother to meet the best friends of my late grandparents. But for the first day, we simply walked around the city, settling in at a nice seafood restaurant overlooking the historic Story bridge that spanned across the Brisbane river. The city was felt more like a bustling coastal town rather than hectic urban city like Sydney or Melbourne, which also made areas feel a lot more authentic since there seemed to be a low number of tourists.
The next morning, we met with the Reeves family (the aforementioned friends of my grandparents) and drove down to Stanthorpe to meet my Grandma’s old best friend. She cried as we walked inside her old home, one picturing a side of my late grandparents that I was never aware of. Everyone was so kind, each eager to meet the family of two people that had touched their lives so long ago.
After that, we went to their cattle ranch, a place that spanned 5000 acres! I drove around the ranch in what I think was a golf cart alongside them and their 13 year old dog, Zoey. She was happy as can be to sit in my lap as I drove across the pasture, I even helped herd a couple of cattle into their next grazing area.
I also nearly ran over an Eastern Brown snake by accident, which my family told me is the second most venomous snake in the entire world. Apparently, two of the top three most venomous snakes live in Queensland. A fact which is totally not terrifying at all to me (it is)
We then went to dinner at night. During the walk, I ended up seeing hundreds of bats flying in the night sky, a sight that was honestly both cool and terrifying. The food was pretty good, but what I really enjoyed was going their house in the middle of the bush to sleep. I woke up to see Kangaroo’s jumping in the distance, one of them got close enough for a picture. but my mother took the photo and she is currently on a plane heading home to America, so getting a picture has proven difficult.
The next day, we drove back to Brisbane to watch horse races! In fact, we watched the great grandson of my grandmothers horse compete. His name was “Granite King”, descended from by grandmothers race-horse “Huntington Girl”: named after the street of which she grew up on. The horse got an extremely close finish of second place, allowing me to get my bet returned to me.
We went to dinner on the Brisbane river once again, going to a massive restauraunt that spanned multiple buildings across the river. It was named “Felons”, with people using the top of its former brewery tanks as makeshift DJ areas.
On our last day, we walked around the city and had a good meal. My mom ended up deciding to go to Cannes with Mrs. Reeves while I went back to Sydney.
