Brisbane.

I’m back from my trip to Brisbane. I spent nearly 6 days in the state capital. The plan was to attend a big rally on Saturday, and then to go to the first few days of a trial on Monday and Tuesday. Some unexpected events came up... but I’ll get to them. First, though, I had a nice day off on Thursday and Friday (not that I needed a day off. I’d just taken a few days off to spend with Andy who had just come home from PNG). Thursday was my travel day, and after getting in to the house I was staying at, I did some grocery shopping and then went into West End for some chocolate cake from The Forest Café.

On Friday I walked to uni, did a little bit of stuff in the library there, and then took the ferry into the city. I strolled around South Bank, the super-landscaped space just across the river from the city centre. This is the place where they held the (much protested) Expo 88. Leftover from that event is this Nepalese Peace Pagoda.

In the background is a BIG ferris wheel. I’m pretty sure that’s not usually there. Maybe it’s to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Expo 88?

The pagoda is set in a mini rainforest walk with a creek. When I walked through here, I saw ducks and a big lizard. That’s pretty cool, considering how urban it is.

After settling down near the river with a book for a little while, I made my way through a few art galleries, and then slowly headed towards New Farm, via the Brunswick Street Mall which has a very Chinatown feel to it.

In New Farm, I was meeting Amy, Cam, and some other Brisbane vegans for dinner. The plan was for vegan pizza, but the bar was packed so we opted for yummy asian food instead. Good vegan food and good company... what more could you ask for?

That was the good part of my trip.

On Saturday morning I put my red, black and gold shirt on, made myself a sandwich and headed in to the rally nice and early. The rally was in support of Lex Wotton, charged with inciting a riot on Palm Island following a death in custody. He is on trial as we speak (I'll talk about the trial soon). I walked through Musgrave Park, then went for a coffee with some other rally-goers. When we came back to the park just before the start of the rally to find police taping off a crime scene. There had been a murder in the park. And the location of the murder was the same place where I'd passed some people sleeping (at least I thought they were sleeping) earlier that morning. So I ended up completely missing the rally because I spent the afternoon in the police station giving a statement about details that I only vaguely noticed in the first place.

That was the bad part of my trip.

The rest was mostly good, but tiring, and really productive. Monday was the first day of Lex's trial, so there was a fairly large group of outspoken people with banners and signs.

We showed our support for Lex, who seemed to appreciate our presence.

I stayed for the first two days of the trial. We chanted and held placards in the morning and at lunch time, and in between we snuck into the court room to listen to the case. The trial is expected to last 3 weeks (up to 17 witnesses!), and we're all holding our breath and crossing our fingers that all goes well.

So anyways, I'm back now. Still exhausted from the trip, and still digesting everything that happened while I was there! Which is why this post is far less succinct and logical than I would like! But I'm getting my head back together, slowly but surely...