e it was just passed 5 am I made myself some coffee and sat on one of the benches in the camp kitchen near the beach to read for a bit. Once Dave got up, we had breakfast and we packed all our stuff (Dave said goodbye to his old hiking booths – see picture). The fact that we were pretty much done by 7:20 tells you something: yup, that hot and we wanted to get cleaned up and on the road.We were really close to Brisbane, so there was no rush, other than our mad desire to be in the car with air conditioning; so we drove along the coast, went through the town of Bli Bli (simply because the name was funny) and stopped in Wooloolaba again for coffee You can put the accent where you wish since we have no idea where it goes; we asked the waitress and of course she was from Italy so she want’s sure (from Genova in case you Italians reading this are curious).
We did our internet things there, then we started the drive toward Brisbane: on the way we stopped to watch some surfers: the waves looked really big to us and there were a bunch of surfers catching them. We finally arrived in Brisbane around 1 and we waited around for 30 minutes or so for our room to be ready: we were a bit too early for our check in time but sure as heck we were not going anywhere. We read on the guide that driving in Brisbane can be frustrating because of the grid of one way streets that make it really confusing to get around. And sure enough, they were right. David did some splendid navigational work while I drove and tried to avoid hitting cars next to me.
We unpacked what we needed (the room is so small there is no space to leave things lying about), packed the camping gear that we will no longer use for the remainder of the trip and hang out waiting to go out to dinner. Tonight was going to be the big splurge: Tukka, a restaurant that serves bush-tucker food (aka, aboriginal food) and since we wanted to try it since we got to Australia, tonight was as good as any…if they wouldn’t throw us out for our attire.
We showed up at the restaurant and the feast started: this is going to be one big splurge (bush tucker doesn’t come cheap) but what the heck, who knows if we will ever get the chance again. We hate kangaroos, emu, crocodile, wild bore, lilli pilli, quandong, desert lime (native berries), damper (traditional Australian bread), and dukkah (a mix of spices).
It was all delicious and you can see what the food looks like: from left to right you see the appetizer which had all of the meats and fruits, then the emu (middle) and kangaroos (right) entrées, which are called main course in this country, since entrees are the appetizers.
