Bridging the gap

This is dedicated to kaya and all those with Gephyrophobia...

We live on a peninsula... the only way to get off it to go to the south side of Brisbane is over several bridges. The first one is the Ted Smout Memorial Bridge, which at nearly 3km or 8, 990 feet long is the longest bridge in Australia and a reinforced concrete viaduct design. Its twin bride, the Houghton Highway, is now used for the return trip, though it wasn't that long ago that its three lanes were the only entry and exit from the area going in that direction.

Pic courtesy of the net

The second bridge, well bridges to be more accurate, is the far more impressive dual Gateways.  Now renamed the Leo Hielscher Bridges, not that anyone actually calls them that, they span the next leg of the journey and go across the river to what is known as Southside. Brisbane is rather odd in that it bisected by a long and winding river and has about 15 bridges of assorted designs that span it at various points.

Now some of you may be wondering what we were doing wandering so far and wide... Well, we thought we might make a quick trip to IKEA. Yes it is half way across town and about two hours drive along motorways and over two major bridges, and probably several smaller ones, but we have a very different perspective on distance here. We also thought that on the way we would fix the small issue with our Gateway tag.

To cross the gateway you have to pay a toll and it is done electronically. Of course ours hasn't worked since we got it, even though we had been reassured it would start magically working after a couple of trips. So off we went to their head office... where we were informed that the reason it wouldn't work was because our model of car has incompatible tinting. It seems there is an area of about two square inches around the mirror where it will work. With that sorted off we set... only to discover we were peckish and closeish to Sunnybank. OK miles across town in a different direction, but it is very good yum cha J

After finally making it to IKEA and shopping until we dropped, and our credit cards had assumed a foetal position, we wended our way back home. It was several hours later and pitch dark, when we pulled up back home to find this little guy sitting on the garage entry. Those with Ranidaphobia might like to look away now...

The Green Tree Frog with another interesting bit of trivia...
These are often kept as exotic pets and the biggest problem is that they can suffer from obesity. Now in captivity their food sources are similar to those in the wild and include the usual insects and what have you. They will also stretch to small mice. No wonder they get to be obese... sit around all day getting large meals delivered, what do you expect?