Sun 24th: Exploring Brisbane (2)
This morning I had arranged to meet the friend who was the inspiration for our Kimberly.  Three steps out the door and I realised how cold it was. Back into the apartment and change attire. You can't tell what the temperature is on the 32nd floor with hermetically sealed windows. Blue skies do not = warm day.
It was wonderful to meet up with Gwen and compare travel experiences. We were astonished to find the extent of the price rise even in the intervening 12 months.
Overnight Peter had discovered that Hamilton Reach was the international flying boat base for Quantas in the 1930s and early 1940s.  So the goal for the day became a return to the River to catch a passenger cat and do the trip towards the mouth.
Of course I was happy with that. It gave opportunity to see more sights,  take more photos and mingle with the crowds on the magnificent pier all of whom were adding to Queensland's declared obesity epidemic.  This condition now rivals that of the US. Both men and women are grotesquely overweight causing the name
Generation 7 XL to be adopted. The tragedy is that there are so many of them that it has become the norm. We witnessed an altercation on our Darwin flight when the crew tried to shift one monster out of his seat by the emergency exit (which he had specifically booked to give him and his wife more room). I happened to be down the back and listened in to the crew strategising as to how to shift this guy with minimal conflict. It was a real-time case study. I could then return to my seat and watch it being played out. Beats the in-flight movies (which Virgin doesn't offer).
So, back to the Pier where we caught ourselves a cat and for $11.50 did the 45 minute trip down the river crossing from pier to pier picking up and dropping off Sunday trippers many of whom had bikes. There are wonderful cycle ways both sides and no doubt excellent coffee shops to investigate. The locals seemed to have hop cards so just rang themselves on and off. Even I might be enticed back onto a bike if I lived here.  You can see them chained to bike racks throughout the CBD.
By the latter end of the afternoon it was so cold we needed to return to our apartment to change into seriously warmer clothes.
Later in the evening we went further afield for a meal and enjoyed watching the much younger generation having fun. They are certainly a very different breed from us. Curious to see them in groups with their own gender. We noticed on the cruise the day before that passengers were mostly groups of 20 -30 year old women. Again tonight there were clusters of guys or of gals but very few couples.