Its been three days of fun here in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Leaving Eric’s home on the Sunshine Coast, Friday afternoon after a great lunch at the Edge CaféMontville we headed off to Brisbane. Finding our home for the next three nights and meeting up with Matt Carter (our flat mate) we went to register and see what was happening at the ODEX dive show, where I would give a presentation on the Saturday, about our ride around Australia. That night we orientated ourselves to Brisbane, had a few beers with the exhibitors before calling it a night.

At Odex

The next day we raced around the ODEX floor meeting up with people we had to see, talking shop and generally having a good time. The presentation went well with some 25 to 30 eager listeners (much to my surprise) listening to the adventures we had had and taking note about why we were fundraising. That day we met up with our good friend and the marketing man from PADI, Danny Dwyer, who later escorted us out of ODEX for dinner, unfortunately the booze got in the way and it turned into a funny night of, lets have another one before we eat, to I think the kitchen is closed! Great night with Danny, Sue Crow from TUSA, Frank from Worldwide Dive & Sail three of our sponsors and with many of the wonderful people who participated at ODEX.

Devocean Dive Goldcoast Cleanup
On Sunday it was an early start, out of bed at 4am to be at Southport for the Devocean beach and underwater clean up. The day before the weather did not look good with rain and wind, so we were pleasantly surprised to wake up to no rain and a clear and quiet night sky. The ride down was cold (13c) but easy and after arriving at the site we quickly met up with Shona and Peter our organisers and owners of Devocean Dive. The cleanup soon got off to a start and we were surprised to see a very good turnout for a 6am gathering on a Sunday morning, well done to all those keen early morning divers who took part. Peter did a good job with the BBQ and you could see this team of divers really had lots of fun together and we enjoyed their company and the draw for the raffle was lots of fun and joy. It was also a pleasure top have Eric meet us up on another BMW 1200GS who is now joining us for the rest of the ride back to Sydney. Also another pleasant surprise was to meet up with the Barnaby’s, Kim and Annette who dropped in for a quick chat.

It was then a case of packing up and heading back to Brisbane, back to the ODEX show were we would again, meet a few more punters and at 4pm close the auction we had running for the week stay at El Galleon/Asia Divers, Cressi Computer, Waterproof wet suit, DAN books, TUSA mask fins and snorkel set and the marker buoy by Surface Marker. The auction was a lot of fun and we raised a significant amount, many thanks again to all our sponsors for the great prizes. The week stay at El Galleon was taken by Lyndle Williams who won the same prize earlier in Southport, she said she was bringing a friend, we will see them soon.

Our last night in Brisbane and we met up with long time friend Terry Graham and his friends Tony and Ross. The night started with a few beers, dinner with oysters and wine at a pleasant steak house and then it was off to see Kevin Bloody Wilson one of Australians well know comedian song writers. A good evening, way to much fun and yes, booze!