back from Beaudesert

we flew into Brisbane (Brizzie, Bris-Vegas) at 8.45 on saturday morning, in time to rush to the hotel, change into our finery and get to the Brekkie creek pub in time to catch the coach to the Beaudesert racecourse, just over an hour out of town.
A beautiful spot, despite the obvious drought, a huge marquee housed 300 of us in comfort and the weather was extraordinarily pleasant, warm with a hint of a breeze, not a cloud in the sky, and the blackfly were not too overwhelming.
The racecourse was an oasis of green in a sea of brown grass and dust, the farmers are doing it hard up there.
Here I am, all dressed up, unfolding my parasol before the sun gets me, a hat would not have been big enough to protect my arms and decolletage, so I found a cute chintzy foldup umbrella in a homewares store - good score! I was able to stay outside for ages without worrying.
And here is a rear view, wether you want it or not!

Our group outnumbered the locals by at least 10 to 1, but they got to sit in a beautiful old stand, cool and shady with the best view of the track, while we townies packed against the rails to rally on our favourites. Flash and I lost $40 all up, which was pretty good going, I chose my horses by name, Flash had no system whatsoever, and we had the best time!
Early evening a the smoke from a nearby burnoff changed direction, enhancing the beauty of the setting sun.


Farmers are the backbone of Australia, I don't envy them, it's a damn hard country.

I had a bread roll for breakfast, lunch had been served around 2pm,and I hadn't eaten much of that, so by the time we left (around 8) I was starving, Flash and the others seemed fine, but then again they had been drinking all day, our bus dropped us off at the casino in the centre of town, Flash and I took the opportunity to make our farewells before we lost even more money, we wandered down Queen st, where there are a number of nice outdoor eateries, had a very late dinner, and wandered back to our nice, quiet, dark hotel room, (as opposed to our streetlamp lit bedroom above the car race known as Parramatta road).

This morning we just had time for a quick stroll through the river market before we made the flight home, Brisbane is a nice town, with a lot going on, rapid growth and lots of infrastructure being built.

Here is Flash enjoying the sun and the river breeze.

Lots of knitting content this week I promise!