Had the whole day in Mur'bah as my bus to Brissie wasn't until 8:35pm....wasn't sure what to do with myself at first but Esther decided not to get a bus until the late afternoon, so we hung out until she had to get her bus. Froukje had got on an early bus as she was off to Byron Bay to go to surf camp.
The sun shone like a good 'un when we first woke up and so we both thought that we'd take a nice walk to the new art gallery on the other side of town. I wanted to see if the opticians was open as I'd managed to break my glasses whilst I was in Byron. They'd had a crack by the nose hinge for a month at least, but I had hoped they would last me until I got home. However, as I was cleaning them, a top part of the lens just snapped right through!! :( Oops. It's not like I am really rough with my glasses, or sit on them or tread on them or anything. My glasses cost me a fortune and I look after them!! I've also only had this pair about 6 months as I only got them a little while before I came away....they must be faulty! What a time for them to break, when I'm on the other side of the world, I have no money, and it's also the Easter holidays when everything is bloody well closed! Major bummer dude.
So, the opticians wasn't open and so we then thought we'd go on our walk to the museum....except the heavens opened and just poured rain down on us - again. Esther had said that she thought the rain was following her as she'd had bad weather up the East Coast. I thought it was following me too, seeing as I got rained out in Coffs Harbour, and Byron!! Both of us together - I'm surprised there wasn't a monsoon!!!
So, we hung around sheltering from the rain for a bit hoping that it would stop. It did level off, so we set off for the art gallery. It took us a little while to get there, seeing as we were both walking in sandals and flip flops and it was raining! We also had to walk up a big hill to get to the gallery. Australia is not made for pedestrians. Esther also commented that she'd found that lots of pavements ended when you still wanted to walk without getting hit by a car....we came across quite a few of those on our way as well!! The rain also got heavier as we got to the gallery, but did ease off again....once we got inside!!! I felt like such a minging backpacker as we both had to wipe mud and soil and stuff off our feet and legs when we got there - ewwwww!! Rather posh gallery too, so it made me feel even more conspicuous!!

So, we had a wander around the gallery, and they had some nice exhibits, though it was pretty small. Whilst wandering around, we could see that the rain was just getting heavier and heavier and heavier and must have eased off for only about 5 minutes. Oh dear. I had seen in Tassie's book in the common room about Mur'bah, that there was a bus to the gallery going at certain times. I went to the front desk to ask about it and unfortunately it only ran twice a day on the weekend, and we'd missed the last one. Double crap. Neither of us were looking forward to going back to the town centre in the pouring rain....however, the guy at the desk we spoke to was our knight in shining armour as he offered us a lift into town!! His shift finished at 1:30pm and he said that if we didn't mind hanging around, then he'd give us a lift. Crikey. We didn't obviously say no (he didn't look like he'd murder us or sell us off for parts, and there were two of us), so we thought we'd reward ourselves with some cake in the gallery cafe as we had about 40 minutes to while away before his shift ended.
We had lovely cake, but it was a shame that the wait staff didn't have any manners so it kind of spoilt the experience! The first girl to greet us told us that all the cafe tables were booked, as there were several empty as we looked around, and that people would be arriving shortly. I didn't mind just waiting outside with a hot chocolate, so we decided to order some cake and drinks to take away. As we were standing around and trying to decide what to order (they had lots of really nice looking cakes there) we heard the first waitress say that someone was going to be late and they wouldn't be there for another 20 minutes. Esther and I looked at each other, thinking exactly the same thing. We'd already told them that we wouldn't need the table for long, so they could give it to us.
About 5 minutes later, Esther had ordered and I was also just about to, when the girl came over to us and said we could have the table in the corner. No, really?
So, we decided to sit down. The girl that had taken Esther's order was as moody as hell and must have had about 2 inches of make up on, as well as it being almost day-glo orange. Doesn't she look in a mirror in proper light? Anyways, she put Esther's cake on the table, but didn't even look at her or anything. Just stuffed it in a paper bag, plonked it on the table, and walked off. Christ. I almost didn't want to eat there anymore!! I almost would have rather eaten my cake out in the rain!
However, I ordered and we sat down. Poor Esther still had her cake in a take-a-way box, but had to ask for a plate to eat it on, and some cutlery. Even though they knew we were now sitting down, they seemed to think that Esther wouldn't need those things?? Weird. Perhaps as we're not posho normal clients in the gallery, they thought we were just going to stuff the cake in one go and then chew with our mouths open?

The cake was really good, but the service just dire. As we looked around, the place was full of people who were obviously much richer than us and obviously much more worthy of attention. Don't you just hate places like that?

So, thankfully our knight in shining armour (black shirt and trousers really) did still give us a lift to the town centre. It was so nice of him to offer, and it had actually stopped raining by then too! We didn't even get his name, but it must have been fate for him to give us a lift as he said that he's only at the gallery one day a month!! See, some things are just meant to be obviously :D

We whiled away the rest of the afternoon in a nice cafe in town that had great food, and fantastic service (it would have been fantastic even without the comparison to the gallery) and also free wi-fi!! Who brought their netbooks out with them - we did - yay! One of the couples that we had met at the hostel - Michael and Luce - also found shelter in the cafe. They'd been for a walk in town and the rain just poured on them, so they wandered in too.
Got back to the hostel as Esther had to pick up her stuff and get to the bus stop. I just hung around the hostel, and luckily Michael and Luce came back with some dvd's of the 'House' series. I ended up watching a while disc of them (4 episodes!!) as I really had nothing else to do and the clouds were obviously REALLY intent on emptying themselves!!
Luckily Tassie was able to give me a lift to the bus station so I didn't get completely soaked and I had to wait there for a little bit before the bus finally arrived. I've set my watch 10 minutes fast as I don't want to miss a bus (one a day service - don't really want to miss it!!) and as I'd booked my seat, I hoped that the bus was just late and it hadn't left without me!!
Luckily, it swerved around the corner as I was thinking of ringing the bus people to find out where it was! Hurrah! It only took about 2 hours to get to Brisbane, which was pretty good though I unfortunately got to see the last 45 minutes of the 'Australia' film on the bus. I'd not been in a bus that showed films before, so it was a shame they showed 'Australia' and not something more interesting!! I was glad that I only had to sit through the last 45 minutes (and I had a seat nearer the back so I couldn't see in too much detail) and not the whole 3 hours!! Mind you, I'm sure I'd have caught up on some sleep by attempting to watch the whole thing :D

Anyways, got picked up by Marion at the other end, who is the friend I'm staying with whilst I'm in Brisbane. I've met her a few times before as she's a friend of another friend, so at least we weren't wondering what each other looked like! I'd only seen her a couple of years ago too, so that was good. She, her husband, and her daughter - Bella - don't live in the centre of town, but it seems rather nice where they are in any case. Obviously couldn't see much of Brissie as it was pretty dark by the time I got there at around 11pm, but hopefully can explore a bit tomorrow.