BLAIR BEAR & SUE DO BRISBANE & HELP QLD WIN THE STATE OF ORIGIN

Dad and I had a lovely day together last week when we decided to explore Brisbane's Botanical Gardens. I had no idea of the amount of history involved and it was great to hear it all straight from my dad's mouth.

We caught the bus in and then walked from Southbank across the new Goodwill Bridge to get there... here's Dad posing with Brisbane over his right shoulder....
This is Dad standing next to a level to show how high the water was in the 1974 Floods in Brisbane. Dad remembered it well and apparently 375 mm of water fell in one day !!
There is this really cool rainforest section in the middle of the gardens with lots of ancient trees in there...the first of many of them in Brisbane...
The other "first" for the Gardens was the sugar cane plant. Cuttings from this very plant were spread all across Queensland and that's how the sugar cane industry grew - it's also how cane toads grew, but that's another whole story...
It was the day of the second game of the State of Origin and we were quite surprised to run into the New South Wales team in the middle of the gardens !! The State of Origin involved Queensland playing against New South Wales in Rugby League - we play 3 games and whoever wins the most, wins, if you know what I mean. The New South Wales team won the first game (by a free kick!!!) so as you can imagine, I was quite keen to thwart any chance of them winning the second....
I tried to convince the gardener to run them over with his mower but he wasn't that keen. I decided to just send them bad luck and it seems to have worked because THEY LOST and WE WON so there !! Yay !!! The decider is still to come though...
Overall it was a brilliant day and one I will remember for a very long time....