I flew out of BNE on Thursday at 2000 hours after very emotional goodbyes with family. The flight was wonderful – as is always the case with Emirates. It was made all the more interesting by my German neighbour with a wicked sense of humour.

There had been a thick fog in Dubai for the past couple of days. The pilot indicated he was able to see directly below the plane, but only 150m in front. He reported that unfortunately planes can’t really drop land – they have to land gradually. After 30-40 mins of circling due to the thick fog I finally touched down in my new home, Dubai.

It’s a shame I didn’t have a window seat. The images of Dubai’s extrememly tall buildings growing out of the clouds looked amazing.
When I came here in November there was was the opposite picture of the building tops being hidden within clouds.

The walk through the new Terminal three was impressive, although quite confusing with me getting directed into departures where it became quite difficult to return from. They’re obviously still ironing out a few bugs, as certain check points could be avoided by walking 10 metres to the right instead of following the crowd on the left.

I was fortunate on my first afternoon in the country to go out and do a real tourist thing. We went out dune bashing in a 4WD, followed by a fantastic bedouine experience of dinner, sheesha, and belly dancing – that was watching, not participating in the belly dancing. Although quite a few followed their feelings and joined in.

The belly dancer was good, but the main attraction turned out to be the Magic Man. No he didn’t do any David Copperfield tricks. He was a dancer, crossed with a spinning top – cum electric light show. I’m not sure of the dance’s origins, but he simply went out onto the stage in the middle of all the dinner tables, and spun around in his impressive outfit. The show probably went for a good 10 minutes, and the pace of his twirls would be measured with g-force. He got a couple of tourists up on stage to dance in his bright kaleidoscope dress. They made a good go at it, I must say. I took some photos which looked quite active. I’ll upload them at some stage.

The first time I left the apartment I knocked into a random Australian tourist. I heard him say “Ah, Brisbane” in relation to the Brisbane Marathon Shirt I was wearing I guess – unless I exert a specific BNE look. The guy happened to be from the Gold Coast City Council. Small world – but I’d hate to paint it.

Friends of our have bought a house beautifully situated within a short walk from the beach at Coffs Harbour.  We were lucky enough to stay with them over the New Year’s break to celebrate with them.

I hadn’t been there since I was a kid.  One of the only memories I retain from the place was that I found a dead baby shark that I proudly carried back to our hotel to show my aghast parents. It was nice to see the place has even more to offer tourists these days.

A must see is always The Big Banana, although I have issues with what they deem a “mega” sundae.  I’d hate to see their measley sundae.  We had to visit twice, then we planned to go a third time for the big boys to do the giant toboggan ride.  But perhaps luckily for our health, it was closed.

Another tourist attaction I had forgotten about is the Pet Porpoise Pool.  I have mixed feelings about this place.  It has the best intentions with rescuing injured animals, but it seemed like a few of the animals could be far better off with more room to move.  Before the show we did get our four year old, Myles to get kissed by a dolphin which was sweet.

I did enjoy the water show.  We got to learn a little about the dolphins, seals, and sea lions on display. And occasionally they did a trick or two also.

We were also almost included in the show when the massive male sea lion dragged its 2 tonne body out. Apparently the trainer forgot to bring out the sea lion’s favourite toy – a basketball.  To this the announcer looked around the crowd for something the sea lion could balance on his nose.  Nothing seemed to be forthcoming, then she walked in front of where I was sitting and asked if she could borrow the four month old Lewis whom I was nursing.  I didn’t really know what to say, so I just declined saying I’m afraid he was asleep. It got a few laughs but what was far more funny was the german tourist sitting next to me who was adamant when he proclaimed, “No, He Iz Not!”.  Thankfully, she moved on and the trainer on cue got the sea lion to balance a fish on his nose.  Once they were happy for him to eat, they mentioned that a seagull was coming down which got a quick-fire gulp from the sea lion to save his catch.

On the way home the traffic was terrible.  I can’t believe the New South Welsh think it’s a good idea to do roadwork and have the major interruptions during Christmas and New Year break.  It’s good to have a reason other than rugby league.  Due to the delays we didn’t stop at Ballina (the half way mark) for lunch.  Instead we went further to the Macadamia Castle at Knockrow – which I will forever call the big gay knight place.  They have a once-impressive giant knight with a dress.  On top of this obligatory photo opportunity, there seemed to be quite a lot on offer at the castle.  If we had planned it better we could have easily spent more time there.

Yesterday my eldest son and I attended Brisbane City Council’s “Kids Day Out” held at the Mount Coot-tha (pronounced Kuta) Botanical Gardens. I finally learned how to say it after we dropped into the Summit to quickly catch the view since we were in the vicinity.

As we turned off the highway we got an indication that the event was very popular, as a volley of cars were parking in a makeshift car park not far from the highway.

Despite I think it being the first time the event was held, the day was quite a success. It was also advertised for the attempted (and successfully completed!) World’s Largest Rain Dance.  It was good to see the 234 people walking around in a large circle trying – unsuccessfully – to bring on some rain under the guidance of local Aboriginal dancers.  The record is to be sent onto the Guinness Book people in the next week or so.  The Murri guy on the microphone hinted that someone else will likely try to take the record at the first opportunity, so we’ll just come back to beat them again.

Big hits on the day were the fruit bat exhibit (I have no idea why); the brass band (they even played Bob the Builder and a Wiggles megamix); a clown called Smarty Pants; and making his own clay creation.  Looking around at all clay sculptured bush animals and scenery – which was the day’s theme – I’m pretty confident my guy was the only one to make a police car, complete with gumnut wheels.

It was also good to see a few real native animals on display – although they seemed too docile.  I felt they were probably dreaming of escaping into the rainforest away from all the patting hands. The display had various lizards, green tree frogs, a tawny frog mouth who must have had a few coffees, and amazingly a fresh water crocodile.  I patted the croc, but the 4 year old wasn’t game – despite the security of a curl of sticky tape locking down his/her mouth of little sharp teeth.

I bumped into a colleague and his family there.  Interestingly they have quite an outgoing daughter around the same age as my son.  We thought they’d immediately hit it off.  But nope, they nodded through our introductions, then happily went their own ways.  This evening they met again at my touch footy game, where we got the reaction I had expected yesterday.  They played very nicely, and even had some beautiful hugs.  In fact, by the end of the night my son was saying how much he loved her. And the goodbyes were quite sad.

My son and I made our way down to Redcliffe yesterday to attend their first settlement festival and superboat grand prix.

The weater was perfect except for the wind playing havoc with the speed boats. There was a good festive atmosphere, and the visitor numbers seemed large.  They even had a shuttle bus service taking people back to other parking at the show grounds.  For once, I managed to fluke a great park close to the esplanade – where most of the action was.  To make the sheer odds even more bamboozling, I managed a perfect tight reverse park on the first attempt.

There was a good assortment of older style cars on display.  My boy has a fascination with shiny cars which was evident as he said “Wow, look at that one” to each and every car along the line.

Within a fraction of a second of us crossing the road to gander down at the waterfront area where the kids activites were centred, my son had sussed each and every ride and put in a class-action of requests.  I caved in, and he did way more than I had initially wanted.

He rode a merry-go round train (a big hit as he was in Thomas!), and played on a jumping castle.  Far above all this was the ‘actual train ride’ we went on. It was actually a converted ride-on  lawn mower with some flimsy carriages in tow. There are a few places around Brisbane where they have these going on occasion.  They’ve unfortunately become a mandatory thing – even if we caught a nice city train to get into the event.  Unfortunatley on the train ride I fumbled the big balloon that he scavenged when it was flying around without an owner.

My son's side-show alley prize

One of the real highlights of the day was his great success at side-show alley. Actually there were only two games available, so it was more of a side-show gutter than an alley. He chose the classic ping-pong balls down the clown’s mouth. When I asked the carnie what the cost was, he mentioned he had to put it up as he’d been losing all the medium-sized prizes.  Not that it worried us.  With five consecutive number threes my son won the major prize!! I was all set to take him with me to the Casino to keep the good luck rolling when I realised we would get one of the big, much sought after stuffed animals, pictured to the right. Next to him is a standard Whitepages phone book to indicate the size.  Despite it being a pretty dodgy Winnie the Pooh knock-off, it was one hell of a trophy.

It’s just not fair. I have been trying to win a major prize for probably more than 25 years, yet my son wins one before his 4th birthday. What’s even more impressive is it was probably only his second try, I only introduced him to the poor suffering clowns at the Ekka last month.

The umbrella piece of art

Further around the kids area there was an activity area where some were trying their hand at circus acrobatics and activities.  And next to this were a band of kids in technicoloured protective clothing painting their own little paper umbrellas. I subtely suggested this to my son.  This was partly to bring down my son’s levels of excitement, as well slow the furious spending I was doing trying to keep up.  It turned out to be a fantastic thing to do.  And I think the resulting masterpiece speaks for itself.

We fare-welled the festival, and drove along the esplanade to my brother’s place not far away.  On the way, the distinctive yellow of coast guard boats not far out to sea grabbed my attention.  We drove down to the water front to make out what they were there for. Although the figures were small we spotted two people getting dragged from the water into the two rescue boats.  If you squinted your eyes real hard you could also see there was a boat they were getting pulled from. Once the people were aboard, the coast guard started to head off in the very wavy seas.  To my surprise the rapidly sinking boat was getting towed, and it didn’t take long for it to resurface.  Just after the danger was averted, and the boat was impressively raised again, a Channel 9 news helicopter arrived on the scene. I could almost hear the camera man’s “D’oh” at only just missing the action.

It was certainly something you don’t see every day, which capped off a great day down at the peninsula.