A Day at Redcliffe Beach - Night 11

Daniel and I awoke at 4am to watch the pre-game for the Rugby World Cup Final in Paris between England and South Africa. The Springboeks (as the Africans are known) were favorites over the Pomies. Being that half of the house is English, I had no choice but vehemently root for the South African squad. Having never watched a rugby game before and thus having no concept of the rules or strategies, the pre-game commentators could have been talking about quantum physics in Greek for all I understood. The game began with a quick score by the Springboeks and at half time it was 9-3, South Africa in the lead. The British blokes were constantly trying to convince me that the hits were bigger and the players better than American Football athletes. I remain unconvinced. However, I will admit that playing without hardly any pads means that the hits probably hurt more, but as far as being harder, not a chance. The rules of rugby allow for some specialization (i.e. some guys do most of the kicking, others the tackling) but not to the level of American Football. Also, players are in on both offense and defense, so there is a much greater endurance factor. In sum, the players are great athletes no doubt, but the speed isn’t quite the same as an American Football game. The most disappointing thing about the sport is the number of subjective calls by the referee and the large impact they have on the game. Twelve of South Africa’s fifteen points came off of free kicks after penalties, the same for six of England’s nine points. To me it seemed like the referee had too much influence on the flow of the game.

Today was Lorelei’s birthday, so her, Daniel and I hopped a train up to Redcliffe for the day. An hour later and $8.60 poorer we arrived in Redcliffe, a small beach community, that, quite surprisingly, was the first permanent European settlement in Queensland (originally a penal colony for the worst of the worst from New South Wales) and one of the places the honorable Captain James Cook landed back in the day. The name is derived from the strange, spongish red rock formations that dot the beach. To properly celebrate Lorelei’s birthday, we had a pair of breakfast beers and then crossed the street to the beach. As is the case every Sunday, a small market was taking place and in the rear was a bit of live music. The solo musician, Juzzie Smith – who is truly a one-man band as his advertisement suggests – was hard at work on the harmonica, banjo, tambourine, snare, and didgeridoo (an Australian horn instrument made from hollowed out tree trunk.) His music is a tribal-folk hybrid and actually very good. Lorelei bought a CD for us to rip to my computer upon arriving home.

After our beers, we prompted strolled down to the beach, which was empty, ate lunch and fell asleep in the warm sand. An hour later, we went for a walk down the beach for a mile or so and eventually caught the bus back into Sandgate where we met the train bound for Albion.

At the house we had a small birthday party for Lorelei and afterwards wandered around suburban Brisbane until we finally found a pub that was open on a Sunday night. We were all pretty knackered and after a solo beer the group walked back home.

I had my first major casualty of the trip today. Before heading to the beach I packed my sandals into the side compartment of my day bag. Upon arriving at the beach, only one sandal had made the entire trip. Somewhere between Albion and Redcliffe my left sandal flew the coop.

What I Learned Today: Simple pleasures like digging in the sand or watching the surf eat your footprints never cease to please me. Something about turning off our neocortex (our wonderful mammal minds) and letter our older, simpler reptilian brains take over is one of the most efficient and enjoyable ways to relax.

written by

exumenius on October 21, 2007 from Brisbane, Australia

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

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I played rugby for most of college. I find myself telling people that the rules are fairly simple, but with the caveat that there are a lot of complications once you get below the surface. I never really appreciated american football prior to playing rugby. The thing about rugby is that it does hurt due to the lack of padding, but also that you *actually have to know how to tackle properly* in rugby, both to get the other person down and to do so without hurting yourself or others. You learn both how to tackle properly and how to be tackled properly, and while there are certainly a lot of injuries in both sports, a lot of the stupid injuries that happen in american football (helmet-to-helmets, for instance) are rare in rugby because they just can't happen. Also, the pussy arm-tackles that you see in AF drive me bonkers. COMMIT TO YOUR MAN, for the love of god. Anyway, will definitely watch a game with you back in Seattle if you're interested.

There are interesting racial ramifications to the Springboks' win, but this isn't the time for that discussion.

Glad you're having a nice time!

written by Kim on November 19, 2007

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