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Loved the place! >> | |
| | | Subject: Queensland, Australia
Posted Dec 27, 2008 by GregPius
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| | I was born in Brisbane and grew up there in the 1960s. It was the greatest place to grew up in. The fruit grew in your own garden. We had a banana tree in the back, a mango tree in the front yard and a paw paw tree outside our breakfast window. The rain was warm and the beaches to the north of Brisbane (far superior to anything at Surfers) were golden.It was hot but you don't notice these things as a kid. We had BBQs every summer holiday and picnics in the Glass Mountains.
I have also been to Cairns and yes it is a long way from Brisbane in many ways. The people in Cairns have always called anyone who lives down that way southerners. Cairns is where my mother grew up and her family had been there since almost the beginning of North Queensland. My father grew up in Rockhampton and Innisfail. In Innisfail, my Dad watched the sugar cane farms protect the north from the Great Depression. The towns in the north were famous, in Queensland, for the number of pubs they had. A lot of them only had one or two policemen and were not over governed in any way. My Dad grew up surrounded by a lot of Italians. My Mum grew up surrounded by the Queensland Irish.
There were people from Scotland, England and a few Germans.
The one thing that made a Queenslander stand out, even in a crowd of Aussies, was their competitiveness. A tennis player called Rod Laver came from this state. If you stood on the toes of a Queenslander he was as most likely to kneecap you. My Uncle Jim served in three campaigns in the Second World War. If you tried to race them in swimming then you had lost before you started. All Queenslanders learn to swim in the womb because no Queensland woman would let pregnancy stop them going for a surf. As for not being clever, they are clever enough to live where no bitterly cold winds can touch them; they are clever enough to live within a drive of golden beaches; and they are clever enough to be able to enjoy the best fruit, bacon, steaks and lamb in Australia. I wish I was still that dumb.
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