Brisbane, the third largest city in Australia after Sydney
and Melbourne, is on a bend in the Brisbane River nine miles
upstream from where the Insignia
docked in Moreton Bay.
This being the land of Rod Laver and the Australian Open, it
was about time to hit the tennis courts again. It has been 4 1/2 months. We
found a 10 hard-court complex in Shaw Park.
Although Aussies enjoy and excel at many sports, judging
from the number fields in the park, the number of participants on the field and
spectators watching them, and what was on TV in most of the pubs, it’s pretty
clear rugby is the most popular sport in Australia.
After a couple of hours on the court successfully not
getting injured, we had lunch at a traditional British pub, the Pig 'N Whistle, on Brisbane's downtown
pedestrian shopping street.
We have been to London many times, but we never had British pub
food there. That city has so many amazingly good restaurants, offering cuisine
from every country in the world, that British food gets overshadowed and lost in
the shuffle.
Joani ordered the traditional “bangers and mash.”
Bob ordered the “ploughman’s lunch:” English pork pie, Red
Leicester cheese, scotch egg, ham, pickles, cocktail onions and crusty bread.
The scotch egg, a hardboiled egg with a gelatinous yolk
somehow embedded in a warm lemon-sized tangy meatball,was an absolute delight.
And the Red Leicester cheese was equally delicious
The Lincolnshire sausage with caramelized onions in the
bangers and mash met Joani’s exacting specs for a zesty and spicy sausage.
But the bland and tasteless English pork pie, served cold, was a
disappointment.
All in all, a good day in the Land of Oz. Now another at sea and
then two days in Sydney. Rumor has it Sydney also has tennis courts.
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