With a 7:30 pickup we had a relaxed last early morning of packing and then the Airways buffet breakfast on the 7th floor.
Alas, we couldn’t access the plane…- it’s being used, mundanely, as a storeroom.
Reuben was early, as usual and gave us a quick ride to the airport. We had bus class for the flight so checkin was quick, and we did farewells with Reuben (gave him a hefty tip of my remaining PNG money) and headed for the exec lounge.
I’m including these details because there’s not much else to see from this day.
Our Air Niugini flight was fine.
I happened to notice as we started across the Great Barrier Reef and did some short videos.
When we landed in Brisbane we were among the first to deplane and since we moved quickly, were the first into a deserted immigration hall, where we navigated cordoned rows to be the first at an agent station.
Thanks to our properly acquired Electronic Travel Authorities, we went through that in record time, and went on to the baggage claim where our easily spotted red and blue bags were among the first onto the carousel, and then we went quickly through customs with no questions asked.
While we were waiting for the carousel to start, I had noticed a text from our limo driver, Charlie, saying he was waiting. We were out of customs so quickly that he wasn’t expecting us and I found him. His limo was nearby (a little embarrassing, really, to be chauffeured around in those, but hey….), and we had a 20+ minute ride into the city to our hotel.
Brisbane is dazzling to us. Bright, bold, diverse architecture, with gleaming towers, but also a lot of parks and other greenery, extensive modern, well-designed, elevated roadways – apparently dressing up for the 2032 Olympics. Bustling, slick, and noisy – a bit much, really, especially after coming from the PNG bush with its wonderfully calm, kind people. I wasn’t ready for it – I wanted to be back.
The Emporium is part of the show – a major design marvel, albeit over-the-top in several ways. I might have appreciated it more under different circumstances. The elevators are a trip…
and our room is in sync with it all…
but I wanted to linger in PNG awhile, and so I immersed in the blog for the afternoon, catching up, while Dana went out for a walk. She interrupted me a couple of times with texts about how excited she was about things she was seeing…
until I asked her to let me finish.
I did finish one post and then we walked to dinner at a Turkish restaurant she had found – the hotel in the South Bank of Brisbane is surrounded by them, all with sidewalk seating. The food was excellent – the patrons exceedingly diverse and affluent.
We had an excellent gelato at a nearby place and walked back to the hotel.
After going through the entrance and riding up in the elevator I felt I was retreating. In the room I finished another post and retired.
Dana and Roger Travels 