A short geography lesson! And a knitting lesson.

I tend to forget that people may have only a vague idea of Australia in general, and my state (Queensland), in particular. Those of you who do know all this stuff can go and have some coffee, tea or whatever, until my next post. However, I do have two photos at the end, if you want to scroll down.

She’s a big country, mate! In fact, at 7 659 861 square kilometers, it’s the 6th largest country. (How DO they measure all those little squiggles?) And, don’t forget, it’s also a continent. Oh, and as this image points out, an island. (We’ve also got an island that’s a state … Tasmania, home of the Tasmanian Devil.) We don’t really boast a dense population as we have only roughly 23,ooo,ooo folks, and we tend to cling to the outer edges of the country, much as a girdle clings to a plump lady!

The reason I started this long-winded yarn is because I had flown down to our state capitol, Brisbane for the week-end. Someone asked how I got there, how far was it, how long did it take, and so on.

So, here’s how my jaunt went. I drove from my home in Atherton to Cairns. This is about 90 km (about 55 miles). It takes about an hour or so, and the last bit is through a nail-biting (but don’t take your hands off the wheel), thrill seeking, no over-taking stretch of sadistic highway, with curve following curve, somewhat like an old-fashioned beauty contest, without the pretty women! This stretch of curvaceous highway is made much more exciting when it’s slippery from the rain, which it definitely was, on the day I drove down.

Then, it’s onto an airplane for the flight to Brisbane, which is roughly 1500 air miles (930 miles) from Cairns. If you chose to drive, you’d be looking at 1700 km (1055 miles).

It’s about 1500 kilometers, by air, from Cairns to Brisbane

Now, the other reason I wanted to tell you this stuff, was to be able to work these photos into the post. To get from my hotel in South Brisbane, to the airport, I caught the Airtrain. At one of the stops, I was totally charmed by a lady sitting waiting for another train, at one of the stops. She was a little knitting machine, very relaxed, watching the to and fro of commuters, never once glancing at her work. I apologise for the quality of the photos, the windows of the carriage were very scratched.

I covet her hat!