The Steamtug Blog

Things in Brisbane had been a little quiet until an old mate from Geelong took a job in the office next to mine. So now I have taken him out on the town, and life here has become more interesting. I am working in the Brisbane central control room looking at the gas wells in Queensland’s south west. Daryl also worked many years for Shell in Geelong, and after the refinery was finally sold, he too has decided to leave for something different. Can you imagine my surprise when they asked me if I knew him, and that he was coming to work on the control room commissioning team in the office right next door.

Rod also works in that office and travels from Melbourne working 2 weeks on/off as I do. I had convinced him to join me at the local pub where the meals are cheap and we found out how to get a schooner of XXXX for $5. Now Daryl has joined out team, but he is on a fitness kick and only allows himself to go out drinking been once per week. So I made a good plan and after lots of uncertainty that I could show them something different without ending up in trouble, they both threw caution to the wind and put their trust in me.

The plan involved going on the train, 3 stations north of Milton, our home station to Fortitude Valley. They again objected that going so far on the train was not a good idea, but they soon saw it was a good plan. My intention was to show them the valley pubs. It’s a more exciting place than boring straight laced Milton. Stop one, was the working man’s pub with working clothed yobbos, chook raffle, spinning wheel behind the bar, the TAB screens and cheap schooners, all done over a tiled floor that can be hosed out after closing time. This is the way old aussies pubs used to be!

Step 2 was to go around the corner to the re-furbished English tavern pub with a big selection of beers on tap, but a bit more upmarket. The Elephant hotel is one I found when I first came to Brisbane and was living at the other end of town. The next step in the plan was to go across the road to China town for a Chinese dinner before another schooner and back home on the train. We had a great night out and the plan worked, and the boys were happy. The only thing, was when we arrived at the train station and found a 25 minute wait for our train home, Daryl who only goes out once per week was too thirsty to wait, so we quickly went back to the working man’s pub for another quick schooner to make it back to the train home. Great fun!!!

Looking around up North I got to see Geelong play footy at the Gold Coast stadium while up here. I work every day up here, but jumped on the train after I finished and went down there to meet up with my brothers and watch the game. Geelong lost… Then after I finished my swing, I went North to catch up with John, who was the chief engineer of Ena on our trip to Melbourne. He lives just north of Gympie and when I arrived, he had lit a fire in his steam engine and had it running just in time for my arrival. How lucky was that!