Brisbane and the Granite Belt

8/9/2015

Returned from my trip to Queensland yesterday night. It was a great trip but rather exhausting but I managed to catch up with many people, had a lot of fun and discovered a new wine region in Australia. But lets get into it from the start:

The start was a bit of an adventure: Alex dropped me off at the airport. After check in, I passed through the security check and was positively surprised by finding a brand new Qantas business lounge that only opened this week in the airport. On top of it, I met Dani, an Austrian/Australian woman working for Qantas at the lounge entrance. I haven't seen her for over a year, so it was very nice to bump into her.

I ordered a perfectly done flat white, grabbed a plate of the nice food they had on offer and just when I had the first sip of my coffee, the evacuation alarm went off. Bummer. The whole domestic airport was being evacuated as a fire alarm went off somewhere in the airport. We all assembled in the car park and about 10 minutes later, they allowed the first people back in the airport. My flight was supposed to leave in less than 30 minutes, and they prioritized the first four flights that were supposed to leave next to get the people back into the terminal through the security check. Still a bit of queuing, but I was quite happy to be in the express queue. I briefly returned to the lounge to get a take away coffee as the boarding was supposed to happen shortly afterwards. With a slight delay we boarded and when everybody was on board, the captain announced that we had a technical problem which required a technician to crawl into the plane underneath the cockpit. Oh no. Every 20 minutes we got an update and finally, after more than an hour, we finally pushed back from the terminal and departed.

The new Qantas Business Lounge in Perth

Despite the captain putting the foot down (or the lever forward), it pushed my arrival time back by over an hour and we struggled to find a restaurant that was still open for dinner in Brisbane – after all it was 21:05 when we arrived at the restaurant strip. Finally we found a steak house that still had somebody in the kitchen and Stef, Charlene and I enjoyed nicely done, grass fed steaks and were the very last people leaving the restaurant.

I visited Linda and Allan the next day. Linda is originally from Albania and her sister lives in Obdach, Austria. I've met her when I was studying at UQ, about 9 years ago. Allan retired in the meanwhile, but Linda is still a science officer in a college and doing translations into several languages for the government, but stopped teaching at the university. They have a lovely house on the outskirts of Brisbane and a superb garden full of tasty vegetables and herbs. We had a lovely meal and a great conversation. Would be nice if they can visit me in Austria when they are there next time, so that I can show them around as well.

I did a trip on the river to grab lunch with Stef the next day – such a great way to move through the city. Discussions with Stef are always great as we can cover many interesting topics that I really enjoy. Stef, as most that know him would agree, is a really smart, very dedicated, high energy, perfectionist but usually highly efficient person. Great fun to have around, travel and to work with, but too intense for weak characters.

Cruise ship in Hamilton

Another good coffee shop, in Hamilton

The Dawn Princess

Old building in Teneriffe, close to the building where Stef resides

 

Hamilton - another day without the cruise ship

I visited several of the best coffee shops in Brisbane during this trip – Strauss, JohnMills Himself and Campos, to name a few and all of them were top notch. Very different style of coffees, but all delicious.

A coffee shop in the CBD - too true!

The former Palace Backpackers - I spent the first 7 nights in this backpacker when I first arrived in Brisbane for studying, 9 years ago!

Yes I took the train to Springfield - but didn't see the Simpsons anywhere

We spent the weekend discovering the Granite Belt, a high, cool area on the border to New South Wales, situated in the Great Dividing Range. Due to the high altitude (700-1200m) and the dry climate, it is a good region to grow wine. Most wineries are very small to small in size, with most only selling at the cellar door or through mail order, hence they are an almost unknown area. Some of the wineries were surprisingly good!

We did an organized wine tour with a small bus and saw I think 7 wineries in total. Some were not to my liking, some average but some were great.

On Sunday, we hiked up the pyramid – a steep granite rock/mountain. Very steep in fact but offering a great view and a cool experience. Super dangerous though when wet, luckily the dark clouds kept their droplets and let us complete the hike without issues. We visited another two wineries where I had to buy some wines after the hike.

Keep on pushing

By far not the steepest point, but still decent

Pyramid mountain - even on an iPhone it looks like a pyramid!

A typical winery dog - at Pyramids Road

A 5 red star James Halliday's winery!

... they got a point there!

High five - but the angel was not interested

The Arch - in Girraween National Park

Sunday night we had a lovely dinner in Oxford Street at an Indian restaurant. I introduced Thomas and Eli to Stef and Charlene as they are good fun. I had a blast and ate way too much. Eli mentioned some friends of his who opened two Australian style coffee shops in Paris and Helsinki who might be interested in chocolates later on in our business. Good to know and remember!

Monday was a bit of a maintenance day, but I had a nice lunch at Sourced Grocer, enjoyed a bit of sun near Stef's pool, had a nice pizza with Stef in the evening and a 5 hour 40 flight back to Perth, arriving after midnight. 

The pool area, on the 7th level

Brisbane airport