WALKING IN THE RIVER CITY

The weather is cooler and it is time to take TOH out for an airing. TOH enjoys prefers walking in the city rather than in the forest (go figure) anyhoo we did the park and ride thingy on the train. We agreed on a walk along the river from Milton into the CBD of Brisbane, nicknamed 'The River City', obviously because the Brisbane River runs through the heart of the city. After an hour on the trains we finally arrived at Milton. By then it was coffee time.

  Naturally we walked down Park St which is an eat street and found a coffee shop. I thought the wall decoration was something different.

 So, dosed up on caffeine we went on our way towards the river.

 Soon we were on the super bikeway and walkway which follows the river into town. 

 It was an overcast day but the rain held off while we walked. As the river runs through the middle of the city there are many bridges. 

We walked under some of the bridges. This is 'The Go Between Bridge" and the newest of them too. It is named after a famous Brisbane Band. (Our daughter's sister in law played in the band for a while)

 Looking back at the "The Go Between Bridge". It is a toll bridge for vehicles,pedestrians and cyclists. It was opened in 2010.

 The next bridge we walked under was the 'Merivale Bridge'. It is a double track rail bridge. It was opened in 1978. We waited for a train to come and not one but two came one in each direction.

 On we walked, but it wasn't a fitness walk as we were always stopping for photographs. The next bridge we came to is the William Jolly Bridge. It was opened in 1932 and is a heritage-listed vehicular and pedestrian bridge. It looks pretty lit up at night.

 Our City Cat commuter ferries near the next bridge .

 It is the "Kurilpa Bridge" but nicknamed the Fiddlesticks Bridge. It is a pedestrian and bicycle bridge and it was opened in 2009. The unconventional style caused a lot of controversy at first. You can see the wires better in the previous photo. I like it! Our walkway now goes underneath the "Riverside Expressway"opened in 1975.

Under the expressway.

 The last bridge for this walk is the "Victoria Bridge".  It is a vehicular, pedestrian and cyclist bridge. This bridge was opened in 1969 but it is the third bridge built on this site. The first was in 1865. It was a temporary wooden structure but finances failed and the iron one didn't go ahead. The timber one rotted and collapsed. In 1874 an iron bridge was built but in 1893 it was partly washed away by floods. A new one was built in 1897. In 1943 it started buckling under the weight of the trams and increased traffic. In 1969 it was demolished when the present one was opened.

After stopping at the city markets (next post) we walked over the Victoria Bridge to the South Brisbane station for our ride home on the train. This is the expressway we had walked underneath. From the dates mentioned you can see that Brisbane is a fairly new city.

MAYES COTTAGE

Mayes Cottage is a nineteenth century house museum located in Kingston a suburb of Logan City not far from us. It was built in 1887 by the Mayes family. It was originally called 'Pleasant Place'. We went there for a photo shoot with our camera club. One of our members is a descendent of the Mayes family, I found that very interesting.

John and Emily Mayes and two children arrived from England in 1871. They took up 321 acres of land and tried all different types of agriculture but eventually sold the timber from the land.Their family increased and they endured many pioneering hardships.

After taking heaps of photos we had a picnic in the lovely grounds still dotted with very old outbuildings.

ALL DONE AND DUSTED

At last the man cave renovations are done. More has been done since the last post on this topic. So I am about to bore you with the details.

The man cave is situated under the house at the right hand side. It has its own entrance and access from the garage. The front door to the house is at the left hand side.

The window frames of the cave had started to flake so the man gave them a dose of spray paint.

 We finally got the new blue blinds installed.

 Remember how it was?

 The new look man cave, with movie themed pictures and room for students learning how to make movies.

Just in case you didn't notice the red flowers (the man needed a bit of convincing to put flowers in a man cave to offset the video light on the other side.)

In the past the man would keep the windows shut and the blinds shut to stop glare on the screens. Hence the name cave but I have nagged him to open the windows when he has students there and why would you close the blinds to such a pretty view. Soooooo................

He set about making fly screens for the windows. It is done now and all is finished.

ORCHID ART

I was given an orchid years ago from my daughter, Sonya. After the first flowers died off it never flowered again until last year. This year it has bloomed again. I have finally found the right place for it. I was so pleased that I took lots of photos and even practiced with my macro lens.

Shared with Today's Flower's

A NEW MAN CAVE

It has been a while since I have been in blogland. I will try to catch up with you all as soon as possible. I had a break while we were busy creating a new cave for my man. In the post before last I left off where we threw out 25 years of man clutter that Bill had collected in his old office.  He had decided to renew his office and also accommodate U3A students for his Movie Making Classes. 

(Some of you may have seen this story already on Bill's blog. So you can skip it)

This is where I left you last time with the man commiserating about the loss of his junk and wondering how it will look when we put daughter, Carol-Ann 's design into reality.

 Out with the old carpet and in with the new.

 New lights and new carpet. I think he's happy.

The furniture arrives.

We took advantage of the services that Ikea provide . We gave them the shopping list and paid for the goods, picking them off the shelves, delivering and assembling

Our painter was too busy to come for over three weeks. So the man starts himself. 

After all that exercise and with a sore chest he called it quits.

Our wonderful kids, Carol and Dave came to the rescue. They flew up from Sydney for the weekend to paint for their Dad. They cleaned and prepared the surface like professionals.

The pin board even gets a new coat.

They even put the furniture back for us.

Tucked all the cables in the cable net under the desks.

There we are a new man cave. Needs some pictures to be hung and a pot plant.

And the cave can double as a U3A classroom once a week.

New blinds and pictures yet to come.

(All photos taken with an old phone so they are not the best)