Beautiful Brisbane

Well, my time in Aus is almost up - having got well infuriated with the whole visa palaver I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to stay in a country that I'd pretty much done with, for just 6 more months, and arbitrarily picked January 5th as my date to depart this sunburned country, and December 18th as my last day at work.

The last couple of weeks were mental: the best xmas work party ever (drinks, speedboat ride round Sydney harbour at sunset, drinks, bus, cocktails, drinks, bus, teppanyaki restaurant, djembe workshop, drinks, presents, bonuses, drunks), saying goodbye to my best French friend Astrid, 4 huge dnb/dubstep shows at work, one of which was total capacity and full of 19 year olds puking on the promoters and a dick of a DJ hooking up with girls in the dressing room, and generally tidying up ends. December 18th, 4am though I walked out of my venue for the last time, and 15 hrs later was on a plane to Brisbane.

The insanity - 500 teenagers packed into Shush for Borgore. James, Pip, myself and security had to form a human barrier to stop the mob throwing the equipment off stage with their dancing. Kids were lining up an hour and a half before the show, and one dude puked down James' legs after only an hour.
Photo by tee eightch photography

The No Sleep Til festival seemed too good to pass up in my last month in Aus - I love NoFX especially, and people like the Dropkick Murphys pretty seriously float my boat, and an invitation from my great friend Garrett to head up to QLD with him to the Brisbane version and a free stay at his buddy Ben's place sealed the deal. I jumped off the plane, into a cab, into a Queenslander house (the first time I'd ever heard of such a thing), out of my clothes, into a pool in the dark with a beer in my hand and I was happy as Larry. As I was chatting with the guys in the water we heard rain on the roof next door, and a second later the flash reached us. It was pretty gorgeous...

Hello Queensland!

...until the next day, when the rain hadn't bloody stopped. And it didn't stop, all day. Now, I'm 24. My hardcorest days are behind me, but I still consider myself able to party. After a delicious breakfast courtesy of Alice and Kieran we got pre-drunk at Ben's place with a heap of great people and headed to the fest, having fun with more and more awesome peeps, but 6 hrs later, soaked through to even my underwear with nothing but a cold breeze and no way to get warm, I was done. I've seen NoFX before, and didn't even want to shift from the pathetic shelter of the bleachers to get $9 half-strength drink, let alone mosh about in the mud and torrential rain with a load of kids. I got a cab with some others back to Ben's place and by the time the others rocked up, I was warm, dry, and came loaded with a case of beer and a bottle of Canadian Club.

Despite 2 fantastically fun days at the house with Garrett, Ben, Jose and a menagerie of others, which culminated in a drunken 2 hour youtube sesh on the bed and several communal showers, I decided to move to a hostel for my 2 remaining days in Brisbane to see the city and not outstay my welcome (even though I did crash Garrett's family lunch and have Ben bring me my new treasured NoFX shirt!). After all the stresses of work and life over the last few months, the Tuesday brought me the happiest I could be: wandering to GoMA, the Gallery of Modern Art, the Queensland Art Gallery with a fantastic exhibition based on surfing by Scott Redford, 2 glorious hours immersed in coffee and Jane Austen in their cafe, a photo-filled walk through the Streets Beach (a beach they've set up in the middle of the city - genius!), meandering through the Botanical Gardens as the sun set and a margarita and a burrito with a new friend.

Scott Redford @ Queensland Art Gallery

I was fairly well in love with Brisbane by the end of it, and sad to see it go as I boarded my bus to Byron Bay, with the timezone setting on my phone freaking out all the while.

Thanks for an amazing few days, friends!