Days 200-203: Wickedly Good Times

Well I can’t believe it has been 200 days since I started this blog. I have been having a blast writing this, and I hope that you as the readers that you have been enjoying this. I know that there are a certain number of subscribers but also there are many of you reading this anonymously and I thank you for that, it really means a lot to me.

But that’s not to say that I’ve given up the ghost – there are still 165 days to go! So let’s get back into it.

Day 200 was St. Patrick’s Day. Now given my first name means “little king” in Irish I figured it would be time to paint the town red. No, I mean green. Wickedly green I figured.

At 10.30 am my own personal Irish lottery opened up. I made friends with Greg from Ohio, after he has seen my Baldwin-Wallace shirt – thanks Cabe, it’s paying dividends worldwide. Greg asks me to partner with him for the lottery, of course I say yes. I also get into a nice chat with Fiona who lives just outside of the city.

At 11.00 am it starts. Greg’s name is the second out of the bin. I’m in.

In fact I had no need to be worried – mine was drawn a few names later, along with a couple visiting from Dartmouth and Fiona herself.

We were about to be wickedly entertained. Greg decides to celebrate our win by buying us Starbucks. I settle on a shaken ice passion tea which was very enjoyable. I pop out after a half an hour to pick up a couple of things, and then back to the YHA to get changed. After an initial confusion where I was locked out of the room, I am able to successfully change into nice clothes and am back at the theatre at 12.30 pm for a 1 pm show of Wicked.

Of course Greg, Fiona and I have to get a picture to celebrate that we were about to be greenified; a visiting schoolteacher is happy to do this.

We head into the theatre and I have drawn the front row, right aisle. All $30 lottery tickets are front row, so really there’s no bad seat in the house, although I would say it was only two thirds full due to it being the Wednesday matinee. The kids are enjoying it which thrills me to no end.
The show starts up and first I am fascinated to see props like a map to Shiz University close up and am enthralled that I am THIS CLOSE to the monkeys during the opening. I notice during song three – The Wizard and I – that Elphaba’s voice is cracking. This can’t be good.

At intermission Fiona turns to me. “Did you see the switch?”. No, I didn’t, what switch?

Turns out that for the first time in months, they switched out the ladies playing Elphaba! And I missed it! It was very seamless, it happened right after song seven – Popular. I was very impressed that they did it so efficiently.

Act II went just as well and the show wrapped up before 4 pm. Fiona suggested that we go to the stage door and along with another Wicked fiend, we did and were rewarded!

First here’s Alissa who played Nessarose which frankly I think is a role that is quite enjoyable and I am personally saddened that the song “The Wicked Witch of the East” isn’t on the soundtrack.

Next to arrive was Lucy who played Glinda. This kind lady embodies the role!

Following her was Michael who played Fiyero.

Finally it was Zooey who stepped in for Pippa playing Elphaba. Sadly even with lightening the photo I can’t do much better so there you are I’ll have to leave it like that.

We parted after I sent a poster home for later for my door and promised to write. I had an early morning train ride to catch so I hit the hay pretty early on this night.

Day 201 and it was off on the train. The Sydney to Casino route

Robert Goulet: Are you from the casino?

Bart Simpson: I’m from A casino.

Robert Goulet: Good enough!”

(sorry, had to get that in there)

is a nice one, much like Melbourne-Sydney and the total run time is just under 12 hours. I had bought The Girl who played with Fire, the second in the Stieg Larsson trilogy which provided many an hour of entertainment on the train, along with just sitting back and enjoying the view.

But that is not all! The overnight train provided the full journey but the day train does not; another three hours on the bus provided the final leg which seemed to be harrowing as bus drivers on this continent are a wee bit too aggressive on the road for me.

In any case 15 hours after I started I arrived to a freshly made bed at my guest house. Which, when I awoke on day 202, was decidedly to my liking. This is good, of course.

I find that on this trip if I’ve got a few days in one place that I always enjoy getting my bearings first off. So on 202, a Friday, it was time to take it easy. Brisbane is very much on a grid system so it wasn’t too hard to go exploring.

First off I booked an activity for the next day which I was quite excited about. Next it was off to find a bus to the suburb of Wakerley. I have a friend of a friend who owns a dive shop and normally would have been off to dive with them, but however due to the impending arrival of Cyclone Ului about 1200 kilometres north, was fouling up plans. As a result no one was going out diving on the weekend but I thought I would drop in to say hello.

I found the shop, located in an industrial park, with no problem. My contact wasn’t actually in – he had flown off that morning to Gambia as he is working on a 3D movie that is being executively produced by James Cameron! I did have a nice chat with his coworker Brent about all things diving of course.

Usually on this trip I try to skimp on tons of food – please however don’t take this as the fact that I don’t eat, it’s just that I’m not really having the most extravagant foods. Mind you on this day I was hungrier and thirstier than usual so I stopped off to get a Boost Juice which the combination of orange, mango and raspberry provided. Brisbane is experiencing a bit of a heat wave these days… so it’s good to keep refreshed of course.

I went to bed around 9 pm after watching a bit of Drop Dead Fred with some Brits and I will happily go rent it when I got home. Very enjoyable in a Beetlejuice kind of way.

So why did I get to bed so early? It was that day 203, today, provided the earliest start. I suggest you watch this youtube clip to find out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3i14sxFC5Q

Yep, that was the reason for the early start. I could have climbed the Story Bridge at any time, but I thought this would provide for an awesome view. And it didn’t disappoint.

There were 11 of us that started the climb although two decided to withdraw after the initial set of stair climbing. I understand completely; like diving, climbing attached to a cord (perfectly safe, mind you) is not something you do if you’re not comfortable. The nine of us, with our guide Michael, continued to the first photo point, 80 metres above sea level.

It was really interesting to hear about the history of the bridge – it’s the same guy that was in charge of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that did this one – except that this time he exerted more control as Sydney was used mainly with non-Australian materials.

The thrill of seeing the sun rise (even though it was partly cloudy) was quite amazing. It made me wonder why I didn’t get up at this hour all the time.

This third picture really gives you a good perspective on how high up I was. Brisbane is shorter than Sydney but taller than the Auckland bridge – these being the only three bridges you can climb in this fashion worldwide. The way down was actually a bit more intimidating as those steep stairs seem harder on the way down!

We actually finished at around 6 am and once we got out of our harnesses, radios, stunningly wonderful outfits (that’s sarcasm, folks) it was time to depart. I paid for my photos and got back to the guest house at around 7.30 am and went back to bed!

Later, around lunch, I headed down to Chinatown to find a bank. It was fun to wander around and see the markets, although I decided not to buy any of the wares.

Which brings me up to date, as it’s around 4 pm in the afternoon and I’ve pretty much been chilling, and wondering what tomorrow will bring…
Cheers,
Vick.