A day at the races - Brisbane, Australia
Brisbane, Australia
Where I stayed
Meriton Serviced Apartments on Herschel Street
Just a week since leaving Brisbane we were returning. Oh the lure of the Meriton ….. No, not just that - honest - although I do admit I am a sucker for a clean cockroach free apartment To start our journey downwards from the Sunshine Coast (returning from Noosa) to the Gold Coast, the Greyhound route returns via Brisbane and with it being Australia Day on 26 January, we thought why not stay a few nights there to enjoy the celebrations.
The National Day of Australia is the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and 26 January marks Captain Mark Phillip raising the Union Jack flag on Sydney Cove way back in 1788, symbolising British occupation of the eastern half of the continent claimed by Captain James Cook on 22 August in 1770. Today’s Australian Day council describes this national public holiday (only introduced as a public holiday in 1994) as follows:
‘On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what's great about Australia and being Australian. It's the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation. It's the day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the future.’
In short, it’s a day devoted to pleasure and pride, a time for friends, families and communities to connect and for many, from what we observed in Brisbane, a jolly good excuse for a **** up - and why the hell not!
As we got off the Greyhound bus, Graham commented that it felt good to be returning to somewhere we are familiar with and there is a level of comfort knowing that you don’t have to worry about how you are going to get to your accommodation, whether it is going to be clean and just knowing how to get around from A to B. The unknown is good too but it’s nice when things are relatively easy. We were given a warm welcome back by Meriton reception and this time we were given an even bigger apartment right up on the twentieth floor - fabulous views!
Brisbane is famous for it’s Australia Day Cockroach Races so of course we had to go see this bizarre event. It was a little bit of a hike over to the venue for this event, the Story Bridge Hotel at Kangaroo Point, but much of the walk would be by the river and in spite of the forecast for rain, the weather was fine albeit hot. We felt it would only be right to earn and build up a thirst for what we were sure would be a few beers that day. Watching cockroaches was going to be thirsty work as was watching the ‘side’ events such as the Miss Cocky Competition which Graham was particularly looking forward to, and enquired whether I would be entering, cocky git.
Walking through the city, it was surprisingly quiet, but as we approached the Story Bridge Hotel, there was a din of a crowd and announcements could be heard over loudspeakers. We entered the hotel, just a donation of a gold dollar requested for a good cause - this year Youngcare (a charity that supports young people with high care needs and to provide alternative accommodation to aged care homes). The place was packed and loud, we headed straight for the bar where we enjoyed a few beers, it was a relaxed and happy atmosphere, people of all ages, mostly locals but a few tourists too. This event originally kicked off thirty five years ago, sparked by two guys in the Story Bridge Hotel bar arguing about which suburb had the biggest and fastest cockroaches, a race took place the next day and since then it’s become an annual event, growing bigger each year. Today there were fourteen cockroach races in total and each race had its own special name such as the Smirnoff Vodka Crawl, VB Cocky Plate and Bundy Rum Derby.
We were able to watch the races on screens erected in the bar area of the arena outside but having got some Dutch courage from the beer and cider we didn’t give a 4X and headed over to the arena to watch the action live. We watched races seven and eight, even managing to grab seats in the grandstand. The cockroaches for each race were piped in by bagpipe players in full Scottish regalia - wearing a kilt was a bit risky I thought with all those cockies on the loose. There were two comperes, and Cockroach Stewards who brought the cockroaches into the arena all housed together in a big plastic container - this was placed in the centre of the floor and then after much pomp including the names of all cockies announced, carefully the lid of the container was removed upon which there was what we can only describe as a cockroach scatter gun explosion with the cockies running in all directions, the winner being the one that reached the outer edge of the 'ring' first with the first three cockies across the line collected by the wardens and deemed the winners. All cockies - well, maybe not all - how the hell could you tell which was which - were then collected by the Stewards and put back in the plastic container and the winning owners were called into the arena to proudly collect their trophies. There were some squeals from the crowd which of course meant some lucky cockies had escaped, glad we were in the grandstand. Mad, completely mad.
Having had our fill of cockies, we then headed back to the other side of the river on the City Hopper, a free river service provided by the city council and running even on this public holiday. The service is really well used and we reflected on the fact that you wouldn't get that free service down the Thames or in fact anywhere in the UK now. We went to another bar close to our hotel which had some live music and was packed with Ozzie revellers who were really getting into the spirit of Australia Day. We joined a 'couple' at one table, when chatting with the guy, a football coach, he told us he was grateful we'd turned up. He said that the woman who had been at the table but wandered off elsewhere wasn't his partner but had been making a pass at him. A little bit later on this lady walked past,probably in her sixties she was a game old bird chatting up the guy who was in his forties, she stopped and whispered to Graham 'there are some people you just can't f pick up' and then wandered off cackling to herself.
The fireworks later that evening over the River Brisbane were terrific and timed to a diverse range of music including Down Under, Love is in the Air and Waltzing Matilda. There's something about fireworks that bring a lump to my throat and particularly so with this display when Love is in the Air started playing. This was a favourite song of my mum's and we had it played at her funeral service just over two years ago - knowing that it had actually been my mum's unfulfilled ambition to visit Australia, I have to confess feeling a tad tearful especially as the fireworks formed red hearts during this song, so pretty and clever. Poignant and a reminder that we must live our dreams whilst we can. The firework spectacle certainly did Brisbane proud with the river banks packed with locals to watch the display, a perfect end to the day.
We had one more day to enjoy Brisbane and this was spent wandering along the river and to the Botanic Gardens which we missed the first time round when we did the mammoth and unrewarding trek to the Mount Coot-ha. We were so glad we went, the Gardens were fab, full of wonderful birds including a trio of kookaburras sitting on a tree but drat, they flew off before we could catch a photo. Oh, how they laughed as they flew away. The gardens also had gorgeous views of the city and we took time to visit the Memorial Wall, a tribute to those who have fallen in WWII and more recent wars with individual name plaques. We were interested to see one gentleman by the name of Cane and also one gentleman called Gwillim, my own maiden name.
What a great country this is, we felt privileged to be here on Australia Day and joining in with the diverse celebrations. Graham said that our day at the races in Brisbane wasn’t quite the same as a day at Ascot but it sure was an experience like no other.