Australia Day

I have a few days of catching up to do.

Last Wednesday we took the bus to the city centre. Buses in Australia charge per zone so the farther you go the more it costs. If you travel between 9:30 and 3:30 and again after 7:30 you get the lowest price.

We had to go to Singapore Airlines to pick up two hotel vouchers for some golfers that depart in April. If you flew with SQ then you have the right to change your return flight with no cost. You do have to travel the same route as coming and space has to be available. Each year we get someone that wants to extend their stay in Australia.

If you do then you must go to the SQ office in Brisbane to make the changes.

On Thursday we checked out Paddington and Mt Coot-thra. Paddington is one of those with it shopping areas in Brisbane and Mt Coot-thra has an excellent view of Brisbane, the river and the surrounding hills. It is a great place for lunch, afternoon drink or dinner.

If you are going to Brisbane and I suggest you do. Then you should visit the Eagle Street market and South Bank market on Sunday. Take a 2.25 river cat ride and shop Queen Street.

If you want to do some sea side locations then check out Redcliffe, Manley, and Cleavland.

We have not had rain until Wednesday and Thursday. Each day it rained fairly hard for about 1hr around 4pm. It was nice to see the rain as things were getting a little dry. The week has been hot with the high around 31 and the humidity getting to 80% today.

Today January 26th was Australian Day. We went with some friends to South Bank. South Bank is the area left over from a World's Fair they had a few years ago. It has restaurants, shops, great swimming pool and nice parks. We had a picnic and sat on the grass and watched the comings and goings. At 7:30 they had a great fireworks display from two barges on the river.

Australians love their fireworks and put on a good display.

Tomorrow our first golfers arrive and we move Brisbane to the Gold Coast.

Snake

Well wouldn't you know it. Just after a warning from my good mate, Dave, we encounter one of the top 5 killers in the snake kingdom right here in our own neighborhood. I am not kidding mate.

We were heading to the bus yesterday to go to Singapore Air lines for some vouchers. As we were walking the 4 blocks to the bus Beth shouts "SNAKE." Of course being the great white hunter, I high tailed it out of there without even looking or thinking of Beth.

After a sprint that would have seen me qualify for drug testing in the 100 metres, I stopped to have a look.

It was a big mean 2 metre long, 5 cm thick,brown snake.

We went to a near by house so we could warn them. The lady was not too concerned saying the neighbour had a dog. We pointed out ,it was not the neighbour but it was across the road. She said "the hell with those blokes."

Then we looked a little closer and it was not moving. It seemed dead, probably run over by a car. Of course our closer look was from about 25 metres away.

Once again Aussie Bob survives another encounter with the dangerous and deadly wildlife that inhabit this hostile environment.

Temperture Change

We are having some warmer weather at the present time. Two days ago it got to 33 and yesterday 31. Yesterday the humidity was only 55% so not too bad.

We golfed both days but decided to take a power cart. The breeze from the motion of the cart helped a lot. Yesterday with the cart we hardly noticed the temperature. We do take two bottles of frozen water and refill them during the round. Very few courses have beer carts during the week.

Some older club houses have a quaint style.

Remember to reserve your power carts (motorized carts) just so you will not be disappointed when you show up and all have been rented. They do not stock as many as our courses do. Make sure you indicated power or they will reserve a pull buggie for you. You will also play some courses (Gainsbourgh Greens) where you will have to have the cart in prior to 5pm as the staff stop work at that time. Some courses are not geared to keeping clients happy but operate by union rules.

Some of the country clubs will not accept credit cards so make sure you have some cash or you will have to find an ATM. Most club houses have an ATM.

Played Oxley and ranked it :

Fairways 5, greens 7, tees 5, club house 5, other 5, value 6 ($26 with cart), difficulty 6, design 5, scenic 5, staff 8 for a total of 57.

It seems that a number of these courses were country clubs and the city has expanded around them. We report on these clubs as we like using our discount book and we are always on the look out for good value courses that may be a hidden gem. Yes we do find them.

Yesterday took us to Gailes Golf Club. This course held the Australian open in 1955. Oh how courses have changed in 50 years. This course did have irrigation and lot of kangaroos. In one mob I counted 31 of our friends.

I scored this course:

Fairways 6, Greens 6, Tees 5, Club House 5, others 5, Value 7, Difficulty 7, Design 7, Scenic 7, Staff 7 for a total of 62.

For other cultural news and information yo

u should have a look at last years entries. There you will find other pictures and stories that may interest your.

Sunday Markets, Coffee and Parking

Yesterday being Sunday we decided to take in the Eagle Point Market in downtown Brisbane. This market is setup along the river walk so it has an attractive back drop.

There are some very nice walks along the river in Brisbane and you can cross over to the south bank and visit the attractions there. We recommend that you take a river cat boat ride. I think the complete trip on the river cat takes about 2 hrs and 20 minutes and it does not cost very much if you go during the week from 9 to 3.

Anyway we checked out the market and then proceeded to Queen Street. Queen street is pedestrian mall with the mayor department stores, malls and a casino. There is also daily entertainment as well.

We wandered through the malls just looking, not buying. We stopped for lunch in one of the up scale malls.

Drinking coffee in Australia will be a new experience for you.Australians are tea drinkers. So for breakfast they like a cup of tea. A lot of them will only have instant coffee at home. Because of this they may not have a coffee maker.

Australians do drink a lot of coffee but they tend to go out for their coffee. You can get coffee almost any where. The coffee that you purchase at coffee shops or restaurants is from an espresso machine.

You can order a flat white, a short black, tall black, latte, cappuccino or other special types of coffees. You will not be able to order coffee from different countries and will not be able to order filtered or drip coffee unless you go to McDonald's or Starbucks.

A flat white is a shot of espresso with milk. A tall black is a shot of espresso with water and short black is espresso.

When we got back to the car I found I had a $60 parking ticket. I read the sign many times and decided that I could park there as it was Sunday. Another couple was also there debating if they could park there. They had come to the conclusion that they could park there but when they found I had got a ticket they moved on. This is one of the more confusing parking signs that I have seen. I am thinking about contesting it but probably will not.

I have a new rule- if the signs are confusing find some where else to park.

The Glades

On Thursday we had the pleasure of playing the Glades. This course is often referred to as one of the top two on the Gold Coast. It is ranked 20th but maybe should be higher. On the Gold Coast we have Hope Island at 10, The Pines at 13 (Private), and Lakelands at 17.

The rack rate for green fees at the Glades is $160, discount book $130 but if you wanted to play it B&B can get it for $95.

This is a Greg Norman course and having only played this one of his I would have to say that fairway bunkers, generous fairways and good use of local water would define his style. The fairways with the white sand in the bunkers are very nice to look at and the ponds, creeks that come into play on a number of holes contain plenty of bird life.

This course if manicured so well that you do not want to miss the green if water is on that side or go over the back as there is nothing to stop the ball from rolling into the hazard.

This course is a real joy to play. I found myself taking a number of pictures and also just looking down the fairways. There is also a back drop of green rolling hills to the west.

The club house as seen on the left was very attractive with a nice outdoor bar overlooking a lake in front of the 10th tee. The setting and fixtures in the club house is top notch all the way.

The course is very long playing over 7000 yards from the blue tees and 6500 from the white tees.

In Australia they do not use slopes to rate the difficulty of the courses so it can be difficult at times to compare courses.

My ratings for this course are:

Club House 9,Fairways 9,Greens 9

Tees 9,Difficulty 8,Course Design 9

Staff 8,Other 8,Value 8 (When compared to the others in top 20)

Scenic 9,Total 86

We totally enjoyed the day we spent here and would go back at the drop of a hat. Once again we experienced a course where we had it almost to ourselves.

The weather remains the same so it gets a little boring always saying 28 or 29 so unless we get a change in the weather pattern you can assume the temperatures and humidity remain the same.

Back to Gold Coast

We had to take another trip back to the Gold Coast to pick up your memberships at the bowls and golf clubs.

For the bowlers one of the clubs that you will be able to use is the Tweed's Bowls club. We had a nice visit with the director of bowls while we were there and he introduced us to one of the best bowlers in the world if not the best. He had won many gold medals in various Commonwealth Games.

One of the things he recommended for the bowlers is use the indoor greens. You can just phone or walk over and book a time for your own play or get together with the other Canadian bowlers and have a game. This way you will be playing indoors with AC. With your social membership you will only have to pay $4.50 for a game.

This club is one of Australia's best. In May they are hosting the World Cup of Lawn Bowls and they are very excited about that. Last time we were here they were hosting a test match with Ireland.

The club also pointed out that members can have a lunch everyday for just $3.90.

For non bowlers the club offers free instruction so maybe you would like to try this popular sport.

From Twin Towns this club is about 4 blocks away. A nice easy walk. You can also walk to Coolangatta Bowls Club about 3 blocks distance or take the bus to Banora which is about 10 minutes by car. On February 15th Club Banora is holding it's 75th birthday party, why not attend.

Beth and I also played a round of golf at Banora. We were impressed with the shape of the course.

My rating for this course are:
Club House 9
Other 9
Fairways 8
Greens 8
Tees 6
Staff 8
Difficulty 7
Course Design 5
Value 8 ($18 for us)
Scenic 6
Total 74

There is plenty of free entertainment at the clubs each week. On Wednesday night we four of dinned at Twin Towns Horizon restaurant and then took in "Frogs on Toast" in the show room. The entertainers were excellent and perhaps the best group we have seen over the years in this part of the world.

Our meal was also very good. Two of us had the snapper with salad, one had steak and Beth had chicken with prawns. The snapper cost $16.95 and the chicken was $25.

Twin Towns as at least 6 restaurants ranging from Australian, Indonesian, Chinese, Italian to name a few.

We also recommend that you attend the free shows at Club Banora on Friday and Saturday nights. They are also free and you take your chances that you will find the right type of entertainment for you. I would say all are good and some are excellent. Sometimes we only stayed for 1/2 the show as it was not our cup of tea. Check the entertainment out and you are sure to see some of your fellow Canadians in the audience.

Indooroopilly Golf Course

Two days ago we played at Indooroopilly, a top 100 course in Australia. We played the first 6 holes and we were ready to give the course a score in the high 80s. The fairways and greens were excellent, club house outstanding and the layout was interesting. Then we reached 3 temporary holes, two other temporary greens, construction on two holes and a number of holes that were shortened. It seems the club had sold some land along the river for a condo development and they have to rearrange the course.
I do not recommend that you drive into Brisbane and play this course even though the price is right. Next year will be the time to play this course when it is back to it's original shape.


The weather was overcast for the first 6 holes then we saw some blue skies. Temperature remains constant, high 20's.

Yesterday we took a tour out to the bay area, Morton's Bay. There are plenty of interesting towns that are worth a visit: Redcliff, Shonecliffe, Manly and Cleavland to name a few. This is where you have to go to get the ferry to the sand islands of Morton and Stradbooke. On these islands you can 4 wheel drive along the beach, go sand tobogganing and feed the dolphins. There is also a golf course on Stradbooke.

Country Driving

On Saturday we decided to take a trip north west of Brisbane through the rolling farm lands and wonderful little towns. There are many of these kind of drives all over Australia and they show a different side of Australia that you don't see in movies and in the media.

You will find great country pubs, antique shops, quaint towns, marvelous scenery, wonderful bed and breakfast locations and delicious dining spots.
Our trip took took us to Samford Village where we check out the pub which is shown below. This is an example of a modern pub.The next two pictures show what old country pubs look like. Make sure you stop for drink or even lunch or dinner. You can order beer in "pots', 10 oz or a "schooner", 14oz. This year I am ordering pots as the beer does not get as much chance to get warm before I order another.



While driving you will find shops and in this case a very attractive vineyard that was set up for a wedding. Beth like to visit the galleries and antique shops.

This old house is over a 100 years old and they did 148 weddings there last year. They make their own wine but only sell it to the wedding parties.

Most people would not think of Australia as green and rolling with lots of cultural activities. They would be so wrong. The picture below shows a little town that had the large old pub as well as 4 or 5 good eating establishments.

County View.

Maybe you do not want to get out of your car when you need to pick up some grog. Well then just use one of the many drive through bottle shops.

We always like to stop at nice restaurant that has a view. Stopped here at Mt Mee for coffee and scones. What could be be better than a latte with two fresh baked English scones with thick cream and jam. Beth has a cappuccino with a fresh glutton free apple and blueberry muffin. Total bill for this was $15.10

On Sunday we went to one of the many markets that are in and around Brisbane. Since the house we are staying in did not have a coffee maker, Australians drink a lot of instant coffee, we picked up one up at the market.

Today we have a tee time at one of the better Brisbane courses. We will report on the course in the next blog.

Temperatures over the last two days have been 28 and 29. It might have been a little more in land. We have been here a week and a half and we think the weather has been the best we have had in long time. Not too hot and humidity around 65% and no rain so far. I hope it lasts.

Keperra Country Club

Since the last post Beth and I took a nice drive two days ago through the rolling hills west of Brisbane. We pasted by some large estates, took the ferry across the Brisbane river and stopped for lunch at one of the golf courses. Since the flora and fauna are so different then what we see in Canada it is always interesting no matter what road you decide to drive down.

Where we live backs on to a large park. At night the bird life and their calls makes us think we are in the Amazon River area, or what we think the Amazon would sound like.

We have been here a week and so far the nights have been cool enough that we have not turned on the AC in the house.

Yesterday we played the Keperra Old Course. This course is in a bush land setting with lots of tall majestic gum trees, some billabongs with lots of bird life and rolling hills. They have 27 holes there and it is open to the public. The course is very interesting because of the bush land setting. They have irrigation so fairways in most locations were good. The club house makes a pretty picture sitting on the hill over the course. It was hot today about 30 with a blue sky. Glad we had a power cart as we had a tee time of 11:30. The round took us 4 hours and we were the only ones on the course.

Three drinks in the air conditioned club house came to $9

I scored this course as:
Clubhouse - 6
Value ($45 with cart)-8
Greens-8
Tees-7
Fairways-6
Design-7
Scenic value-7
Other-7
Staff-8
Difficulty-8
Total=71
Last night we went to the local pub for our evening tea (dinner). This is newer style pub, very modern with a good size dinning area, slots, and horse race betting area.
At the table we had chicken, two rib steaks, t bone, and fish plate. The cost of the meals were around $25 which includes gst and tip. The meals came with salad and choice of potatoes.

Drinks for the 5 us ( 3 glasses of decent wine, large coke and beer came to $20)

Today we are off to explore some of the small towns just north of us. According to the tourist brochures there are some good views of Brisbane and a few towns with some shops, art galleries and pubs.

So will report on these in the next blog.

Today we are under overcast skies and have a temp of around 25 degrees. The humidity is not too bad but you start to notice it while walking around the course.

The course we selected today is the McLeod Golf and Country club. With the discount book the round was $10 each for 18 holes.

This is a typical Australian older course. Large gum trees line the fairways with a number of billibongs around the course. There was plenty of bird life and some nice flowers and some elevation changes.

The course scores :
5 for fairways
5 for tees
8 for greens
6 for clubhouse
7 for staff
7 for layout
6 for interesting views
5 for extras
10 for value
7 for difficulty
This gives us a total of 66
Would I go back? Sure! Why not at $10, it is almost free and the course was mapped for my Igolf Gps Caddie, so I knew the distance to the front, center and back of all the greens.

Brisbane at Last

We arrived in Brisbane (Brisie) Saturday at 7:30 pm. We cleared customs and immigration and got our bag in 45 minutes as our bags were the last to come off the plane.

Remember you can not take food into Australia and your golf clubs and golf shoes must be clean. Having just said you can not take food in you may be able to if you declare it. We always declare our food. This time we declared, candy bars, candy, granola bars, a loaf of bread and some almonds. They looked at it all and let us keep the food. Did not take long and well worth doing it this way. You can get into a lot of trouble if you do not declare or forget to declare your food, nuts or wood products.

This is our 4th day her and the weather has been very good. The first two days the temp was 28 degrees with clear sky's. Yesterday we had over cast skies and a temp of 25. The humidity is not too bad and around 70%. Nights have been cool and have used a sheet and a light blanket. We have turned the fan on for two of the nights. We have not used the AC unit at all.

Golf courses and lawn bowl clubs all look green and in good shape. Beth and I will be playing our first round of golf today. Not sure where but will report on the course tomorrow.

The last two days were work days for me as we had to go to the Gold Coast and get everyone registered at the various golf and bowling clubs. We also checked out the various accommodations everyone will be using.

I made a new contact that should be very useful for the golfers. If you do not mind playing experienced golf balls then I have the shop for you. Golf balls are heavy to carry around. Why not leave them at home an purchase some balls here. New balls are expensive here so this only works if you want used balls. Yesterday I purchased 50 noodles for $15. I like noodles as they are low spin and thus I do not slice them as much. If I get the time I will publish the prices for some of the more expensive balls.

This store also said they would sell you new pull carts for $39 and purchase them back from you for $20 if they are in good nick and they can sell them again. This is a good deal as you will have to pay anywhere from $3 to $5 to rent them at the various courses.

If you want to order carts please email me as soon as possible so the store can order them in for us. You will have to pay them when you pick up your carts and golf balls. This shop is only about 5 minutes from where you pick up your rental car.

There is some good and bad news about the golf courses. The bad news is Emerald Lakes is no longer on the 2 for 1 list. The good news is Lakelands, the Nicklaus course is. The rate for Lakelands is $140 but with two for one it is now $70 and this includes cart and range. I am looking forward to playing this course.

Here is a proposed list of courses that I would play during a four week stay on the Gold Coast.

• 3 rounds at Club Banora - green fee $18
• 4 rounds at Coolangatta Tweed- green fee $25, top 100
• 2 rounds at Lakelands- green fee $70 with cart, #17 in nation
• 2 rounds at Gainsborough- green fee $33 with cart- top 100
• 1 round at Ocean Shores- green fee $40 with cart and lunch, #48
• 1 round at Sanctuary Cove-Palm- green fee $69 with cart and range, top 100, this is one of the socials
• 2 rounds at Mulullumbuah (sp)-green fee $20
• 1 round Kooralbyn-green fee $34.50 with cart, top 100 - this is one of the socials
• 1 round at Emerald Lakes- green fee $49 with cart

Of course you can pick and choose your courses to fit your budget but most golfers in the past have enjoyed playing these courses. Beth is very happy just playing at Club Banora.

There are lots of other courses and some with decent green fees such as:

Gold Coast for $20 walking, Surfers for $30 or $16.50 after 3 pm, Byron Bay for $27,Mullumbinby for $11.

There are a few others that you might want to play but the fees are higher. These are Colonial, Robina Wood, and Royal Pines. These $65, $80 and $80 with 4 at Royal Pines. All these include carts and are ranked very high in the nation.

The ladies PGA will be at the Royal Pines during the first part of February so some of you might like to take this in. Most of the stars will be here.

There has been a change of dates for our hotel and golf to Kooralbyn. We had to move it a head one day. We are now golfing on Feb 20, staying the night and then golfing again on the 21. Our tee times will be around 1pm.

There is a lot of information in this posting. The rest of the postings will cover weather, golf, dinning etc and should be a little more interesting.

Singapore Airlines

On January 4th we boarded Singapore Airlines flight SQ 17 from Vancouver bound for Brisbane. We had a forced overnight in Singapore.

This is our 4th time we have used SQ to get to Australia. It has to be one of the best airlines in the world.

You will have to go on line to their site and check in prior to departure. This way you can change you seats . You can do this 72 hours prior to departure time on the coast. You will need your ticket numbers to check in. The passport and credit card option did not work for me. I will send all those that are travelling with SQ their numbers.

Why is SQ so good you ask? Here are some of the reasons:

• A little bit more leg room
• Head rests that fold in so you can lean your head against
• Hot towels prior to departure and meals
• Outstanding flight attendants
• Lots of meals, drinks and snacks
• Drink cart comes by about three times prior to the meal.
• Over 30 videos on demand plus TV programs, music, and games. There is lots to do.
• One of worlds best airports in Singapore

These items are on some of the features for Singapore Air.

We had a good hotel in Singapore in a nice location, Furama Riverside. The transfer takes a long time as we were the last hotel that the bus went to. We got there at 1 am after arriving in Singapore at 1130 pm. They picked us up at 0630 for our flight to Brisbane so not much time to sleep. Even though it was short it was nice to get off the plane and see the green tropical city on your ride into the hotel.

If I was doing this connection again I think I would take the cab rather then the free bus as we could have save an hour getting to the hotel and stayed in bed another hour or so for the return. The cab costs about $25 SQ at night and $20 during the day. This is about $15 Can.

If you do decide to take the taxi you still must go to the hotel stop over desk to have them check you in to their system and receive you coupons. If you do not want to take the bus then just go back down the hall a bit and go to the taxi area. You can see it from the stopover hotel desk. If you are traveling on points or with some other airline then you will have to take the taxi to the city.

The exchange rate at the airport was $1 cdn = $1.30sq.

The temperature in SQ was 27 at night with not too much humidity.

The flight is long and I think I watched 6 or 7 movies. The stop in Seoul is only 1 hr and by the time you get your transit pass and go through security again you do not have much time to explore this huge airport. However you do get to stretch you legs and have a look at some shops.

Vancouver

Arrived in Vancouver on January 1st to rain and temperature of 8.Must say this is colder then Edmonton at zero with blue sky.

Got rained out with my mapping on the second so had to map three courses on the third. I mapped Redwoods in Langley and the two courses at Northview in Surrey. The two courses are very different at Northview. The Ridge is an excellent course and would rate very high on a course review, somewhere around 89 out of 100. The canal course is flatter and not as interesting and would end up around 84. At $50 and $60 a round this represents good value. The Ridge course was the home to the PGA tournament (Air Canada) for a number of years. Mike Weir won his first PGA event here.

The Redwoods in Langley is an excellent course as well. It is not in as good as shape as Northview but the trees and views are nicer. Make sure you play this one when you are in BC.

While we were here we stayed at the Delta Airport. I have to give his hotel a lot of praise. The location was great, the view good, the staff and room were also very good. If you get a chance I recommend that you stay at the Delta.