Down By The Bay

Since Australia Day is a public holiday, Bob had the day off (although he did have a call or two and did some emails). We had a nice morning. We went down for our workout and were greeted in the lift with a “Happy Australia Day!” Bob confessed we weren’t Australian and he confessed he was French, although his accent gave him away.  He was heading down to the gym as well and he and Bob talked about France while on the bicycle, I was on the treadmill. We also met a true Australian on the lift and he was meeting 11 others friends to celebrate with and none of them being Australian. We all agreed it was nice we could all benefit from their holiday!

Later we went out for a little walk and ran into a coworker and we each talked of our plans for the day. He was heading down by train to see the soccer match. Our friends, Barbara and Graeme, picked us up about 3pm and we headed east. We drove out to Wynnum to see the area and ended up a little south in Lota to meet another couple there and had a nice time visiting over coffee (I had tea) while enjoying the cooler weather by the bay.  Of course the men gathered in the chairs and the ladies visited at the table.

Some of the many sailboats we saw



Pictures of the bay and Mangrove trees with the tide in.



After the tide went out

Packing up to go for dessert

We joined together and had a light picnic supper of cold chicken, potato salad, tossed salad and crusty bread. Finishing off the evening we drove back to the other couple’s, Barbara and Gordon, beautiful home and had a traditional Australian dessert of Pavlova and coffee (me with my tea). Pavlova was created by a chef from the Perth Hotel Esplanade in 1935 to celebrate the visit of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.  It has a meringue base topped off with cream and fruit. As you can see we had strawberries, passion fruit and bananas on top.
Barbara didn’t think it was picture perfect but I assured her it was. It was delicious!

Pavlova

Winston their long-haired dachshund

We had a nice time visiting before heading back home. While driving back over the Story Bridge we noticed that one side was lit by green lights while the other side had yellow lights, the color of their Olympic and national sporting colors.  From our balcony we noticed some fireworks off to the south, which surprised us because the big celebration at South Bank was cancelled due to the floods. But we enjoyed the display of colors.

It was a nice day and a great break in the middle of the week to get away and have a bit of relaxation with friends!