Brisbane is gearing up for Christmas. The main shopping area looks like this
We do our Christmas shop and courier boxes of Aussie things to BC and Ontario. That done, off we go to the gallery and museum
Some beautiful aboriginal pieces
There are two big things in town at the moment. The first is a show of Japanese prints. Some beautiful illustrated manuscripts and sketch books
And as luck would have it, a Hokusai, but sadly no Utamaro
They were running digital loops made from the Lumiere brother’s first Paris scenes, which we’ve never seen other than from stills. Mesmerizing
Off to the museum. That strange skull in the middle is from a platypus
These crazy skeletons are from the Australian frog-mouthed owl
Anyway, we’d done our shopping, been to a few of the shows and just in time Steph Jeavons calls to say she’s arrived. Steph is the highest profile solo round-the-world rider, male or female, going around right now. A celebrity. Magazine articles, TV, the whole works. Her website is here. Her Facebook page has 12,000 likes, lol
Sponsored by Honda, she rides a CRF 250L. She’s going around east. Here I am, in the presence of rtw royalty
We hang out for a couple of days and mostly drink beer, looking at maps and talking about what’s ahead. But there’s another big show in town I want to see that I haven’t been able to go to: ‘Undressed, 350 years of underwear’. So I hijack Steph and off we go. But strictly no photos allowed. The show was small and disappointing, with the exception of the star piece, below
Then, on the third morning, ‘RTW Shane’ (as he’s known) shows up and off we go!
Shane Smith is an Aussie on a DR650. He’s travelling west and is back here filing for his Pakistan visa. His bike is in India. The pic below is as he is on the road. He’s borrowed a local bike for his visit. No website, smart man
It’s extremely rare for 3 solo rtw riders to meet. There are maybe only 15 to 20 going around solo at any one time. Steph and Shane are typical riders in their prime. 20 years younger than me… oh well
Shane has a treat lined up for us and within minutes of his arriving, we head off
This is Gold Coast, on the way
Then we arrive at our destination: Nimbin
It’s a hippie town
Pot is sold retail, but they qualify you as it’s still illegal. Just say your from Vancouver. And they have their own vocabulary. ‘yandi’ is weed, ‘bush’ is the shake, the rest I didn’t remember! But this is all heresay anyway.
We went to a restaurant where they had ashtrays outside for pot but cigarettes were not allowed.
Crazy stores
The three of us had a lot to talk about and were keen to learn about each other. As Steph says, it’s a good thing we stopped when we did before we learned too much. It was fantastic.
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I checked out Steph’s site: Wow! A budget of 5 quid a day! Very inspirational…
The 5 quid a day thing didn’t last very long. As far as the first gas station. We laughed about this.