Brisbane

August 3, 2014

I always love coming to Brisbane . The family are the obvious attraction but I enjoy the somewhat exotic tropical environment and the weather at this time of the year is lovely. Staying with the Walas over a weekend means a total emersion in sport. Charlotte was swimming in the Brisbane Short Course Swimming Championships over the weekend. This was not only a steep learning experience for us but also for them as Charlotte has only recently stared swimming seriously and this was only her second big meet. She had qualified for five events so we were backwards and forwards all weekend to the magnificent facility that is the Brisbane Aquatic Centre. It is no wonder that Australia is such an amazingly strong swimming nation as the organisation of this event was extraordinary. We felt very proud of Charlotte as she did a personal best in four of her events. Also squeezed in between all this swimming were three soccer matches the boys were playing in.

Our three days were soon over and Jane was dropping us and our unwieldily luggage out at the airport. Although we had exactly the same as leaving Auckland the check in was much tighter - I really do suspect that the scales in Auckland were weighing very light. However we have made it. The trip to Dusseldorf will be a bit of a trial, fourteen hours to Dubai, about three or four hours on the ground there then about eight hours to Duesseldorf. We will put our bikes together in the airport then wobble off to find our hotel which is only about three km away.

The tree were full of Ibisis. Jane says there are thousands of bats up there too

Matthew made us pancakes for breakfast and very good they were too

The little boys have a team talk at half time

Waiting for our flight I catch up with the journal

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