50-cent Fun - Witton Barracks and Walter Taylor Bridge!

Brisbane Greeters offer a free tour of the Walter Taylor Bridge - an activity that had been on my radar for at least seven years!

Tours run on select days, with only four participants on each - so scheduling a suitable time had been tricky due to Nick's shift-work.

Today's tour was eagerly anticipated!

We caught the train to Indooroopilly and met our tour guide in the park, beside Witton Barracks.  

We had a morning tea picnic in the same park, on our previous visit to Indooroopilly.

We'd read some of Witton Barracks history, during our heritage trail walk but on this tour, we entered one of the buildings, now converted to office space - and viewed a former cell.  It was a very interesting site.

It was a short walk from Witton Barracks to Walter Taylor Bridge, our primary focus for doing the tour.

The bridge is one of only a few in the world designed for residential living and the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The north tower was home to the Green family for more than 75 years.

I'd been keen to see inside the bridge apartment since realising tours were available - but as we listened to our guide, we realised there were lots more interesting facts about the bridge and it's builder, including a link to Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We had plenty of time for a good look through the rooms, photos and records.  We even stood on the balcony to view trafffic below!

(Some people remember driving on the bridge and seeing washing hung over the balcony)!

The National Film Archive has a short film from 1954 - titled "Living in the Walter Taylor Bridge".  

At the end of the tour, Nick and I walked back to the Jack Pesch (pedestrian and cycle) Bridge, to cross the Brisbane River.  We then walked under the four bridges to the Walter Taylor Reserve, where we sat beside the river for our picnic lunch.  It was a great shady spot to view the bridges from another angle and we stayed for a while, watching the world go by.

After lunch we walked back to Indooroopilly, on the Walter Taylor Bridge footpath. By that time, out of the shade, the temperature was 34 degrees and we made a snap decision to have a drink in the Indooroopilly Hotel (which had been a point of interest on our previous heritage trail walk).  We really appreciated the air conditioning while we waited for our train home!

Total fare cost was $2.00 - 50c each way, for each of us. How good is that? 

Our previous Indooroopilly train adventure was 12 days ago.  Since then the price of diesel at the same fuel station had risen to $3.21 per litre. Using the same calculation method, today's return trip would have cost just over $16.00 - plus $6.00 for parking, so $22.00 total.

50-cent Fun - Indooroopilly!

We've had a busy week and I was looking forward to some time out, on another 50-cent adventure.  

Some tech prep was necessary for this one.  I'd tried to re-borrow a book of walks around Brisbane suburbs.  

It was no longer in our local library collection and I didn't want to buy a copy (cos cheap and cheerful is our current focus).

Brisbane Council has lots of heritage trails though, which can be downloaded as .pdf files. That seemed a great option but my phone has a few quirks, so wasn't up to extensive use on a day's outing.  

I remembered Nick's iPad, which he uses for his music files.  I borrowed it the other day to save some bookmarks and also download the first heritage trail. 

We set off this morning with our lunchbox backpack and fully charged iPad - ready to view the map and info on its bigger screen.

Indooroopilly is about a 40-minute train ride from our local station.  Once there, we walked to the trail's starting point, a memorial in Keating Park.

There are 17 points of interest on the trail.  Nearly all of those were new to us and we liked the snippets of history.

We had a morning tea break half-way round, near Witton Barracks, to lighten the backpack load!

I've admired the Walter Taylor Bridge on our previous drives to/through Indooroopilly.  I liked seeing it at closer quarters.

We stopped to read some history of the adjaent Albert Bridge.  The first of the same name was destroyed by the 1893 floods in spite of attempts to weigh it down with a fully loaded train!

That bridge was subsequently swept away by floodwater, in dramatic fashion. 

"A desperate plan was hatched. A fully loaded steam train was parked on the bridge, its weight meant to pin the structure in place ... 

With a crack that could be heard over a kilometre away, the bridge’s central span snapped like a twig. The train, the steel, the timber—it all collapsed into the floodwaters below."

I haven't found any photos of the original bridge with the fully loaded steam train in place but there are other photos of it's destruction, here.

We continued walking to see the remaining sites and then had our picnic lunch in Keating Park (near our trail starting point).

By the time we got home, we'd walked around 6.5km! 

Total fare cost was $2.00 - 50c each way, for each of us. How good is that?

As we walked around, we saw diesel adventised for $3.15 per litre.  If I calculate the Mahindra's consumption at 8 litres per 100km, our return trip would have cost just over $15.00 - plus $6.00 for parking, so $21.00 total.

50-cent Fun - February edition!

We've had a few 50-cent train rides over the past 18 months.  

Queensland's 50-cent fares became permanent in early 2025 after a six-month trial period. The scheme applies to all Translink buses, trains, ferries, and trams.

As much as I usually blog of our road trips, there were a couple of train trips from our NSW days. 

Back then we travelled as a family of four - and carted picnic provisions in our trusty trolley.  

Nick is currently off work and we've been seeking cheaper entertainments -  even before all the rising fuel costs.  Mostly it's just two of us, so no need for the trolley.

Our first planned 50-cent adventure was to the State Library's "Driven" display - yep, spot the irony of catching the train to a car exhibition!

We hadn't packed lunch, so walked from the Library to West End and bought some lunch items from Woolies.  There was more walking to a shady spot beside the river where we sat on a huge rock and enjoyed the view. 

All up we walked 7km that day and spent $26 on lunch, plus $9 later in the afternoon for drinks and snacks.  $37 total spend, which included $1 each for our train fares.

After the Driven day out we bought an insulated backpack from BigW, on clearance for $6.50.  

We already had two insulated lunch boxes that fit inside and I made a simple tote bag to tuck into a side pocket. 

Our next outing was fairly impromptu.  We caught the train to Rosewood.  

We poked around opshops, found a few bargains and then bought some lunch items from Drakes supermarket.  

We found a shady picnic table. It was hot out, so after lunch we sat in the air conditioned library till it was time to go home.

Total spend was $10 for lunch and $2 for our train fares -  with 3.5km walked.

Rosewood is one end of our local train line.  Caboolture is the other end - and that was our next destination, a couple of days later.

The Art Gallery had a very interesting exhibition. We then picknicked at Centenary Lakes, while watching various bird antics. Highlight was a dozen cormorants doing some synchronised swimming! After lunch we walked a bit further to a couple of opshop and scored some excellent bargains - including a pair of cushions for the nearly two-hour trip home!

I'd packed excellent lunch provisions that day - a ham roll for Nick, Greek salad for me and juice boxes for both of us.  There was even apple/almond cake. Our fares were just $1 each - and we walked 5km.  

I'm currently researching for more public transport outings - here's to making great use of our 50-cent fares!

Hatch-ing a plan ...

While we did use the under-bed area to store some lesser used items last year, it was a bit awkward to lift the bed when we wanted access.  

We belong to a Cub Camper modification group and saw that a few people had fitted an access hatch door to the driver's side of the camper - which gave easier access to the main space beneath the bed.

The hatch door unit was an eBay buy, using a discount voucher.  It arrived promptly and Nick started fitting it.

He used cardboard templates to ensure correct placement - and then cut away the necessary hole using a grinder.

We've been doing a few modifications lately - improving function, without spending too much.  

Aside from the hatch door purchase, all other materials were already here - left over from various other projects.  

The hinges were used as corner supports because they were in the garage, salvaged from the D9 camper's flipover bench prototype.

Once the hatch door was installed, Nick worked on building a plywood partition - to prevent items in the area moving into the pantry / kitchen drawer slide space, or damaging the water pump.

Small brackets hold the partition in place. The whole unit can be removed, if necessary. The last segment of partition can also fold back to allow access to the pump, if needed.

We're so chuffed with Nick's great work! It's awesome!

Custom drawer ...

Lots of modifications were made to the Spacevan last year, preparing for our big trip.  The drawer units worked so well - and we were really pleased with them.

During that process, Nick shortened the former bunk bed base.  At that stage, we decided to keep the diesel heater (installed by a previous owner).

The diesel heater is so very noisy, that we prefer not to use it!  Funny story, our neighbours at Port Augusta used their diesel heater overnight and we could hardly hear it - unlike ours that sounds like a jet plane taking off!

Nick removed the heater, which freed up storage space under Bandit's bed.  

We considered installing a drawer unit there (only a little higher, so Mr Dog would still have his bed) but finding a pre-made option to fit around the wheel arch was tricky.

We'd gone back to Bunnings for a sheet of plywood, to make a drawer - and I saw some metal tool boxes. One of those was just the right size to become a drawer in the space!

The coffin handle is from Nick's Simplicity era!

Spring cleaning ...

We treated the outside of the canvas with Milton solution prior to last year's big trip and were happy with those results.  Earlier this year, it became obvious that more action was required and I purchased specific canvas mould cleaner.

It was hard to line up Nick's rostered time off with a block of good weather - necessary when using the product. 

As he's now off, we decided to make use of predicted sunny days.  We bought some supplies from Bunnings, including a platform ladder, sprayer and gloves.

We used the cleaner on both sides of the canvas and did two full coats on most areas.  The results are imperfect but vastly improved on our starting point.

The canvas then needed a full 24 hoursto dry before we applied the waterproofing agent.  Nick used a roller for most of that step.  I helped with a paintbrush.

There was some residue on the plastic windows and I googled for a way of cleaning those.  

Isopropyl alcohol was recommended and Bunnings sold a larger bottle.

I was impressed with the isopropyl alcohol results!  The three windows are so much better - and we can see through them again!

Bunnings also sold adhesive mesh patches and I've used a couple of those to repair some small holes in the window mesh, plus strengthen a few spots where it seemed holes would likely develop. 

Queen Mary Falls ...

I was the driver for our scenic route down to Queen Mary Falls, cos Nick had done three night shifts and was quite worn.  We'd chosen a spa cabin in a small caravan park, just across from the falls.

It was a good choice.  The cabin had a bush setting, accessed by a separate driveway, away from the sites.

Nick napped in the afternoon and I sat quietly, watching the birds and little roos.

Our nightly possum visitor was a high-light of our stay!

There was an early-ish gentle bushwalk to view Queen Mary Falls, on our first morning - followed by local mooching and a pub lunch.  

Afternoon/evening rain didn't dampen our spirits. We dined wonderfully well. Even worked out enough reception for a Spotify soundtrack. There was a round of Scrabble afterwards. 

Such heavy rain made for excellent waterfalls! 

I'd prepped Asian Noodle salad prior to departure and split the dry shredded cabbage and sliced shallots into two containers. 

The dressing was packed seperately in a small jar. I used half quantities of pine nuts and noodles each night - which worked well. 

I don't generally use our home microwave for cooking.  Mobile reception was quite limited at the cabin. 

If I sat the phone in the right place, I was able to check how to microwave corn in its husk. 

I'd planned to BBQ the meats but given wet weather, it was easier to use the electric pan inside. I cooked zucchini at the same time. 

None of my cheffing was particularly tricky but we both really appreciated my efforts. And yes, my anniversary frippery helped!

We took bubbles and a favourite red wine with us - along with a Stanthorpe dessert wine, purchased the previous year, on Valentines Day!