Winterfest!

Beleive it or not, there is a European-style Winter Festival in Brisbane, complete with an ice rink and tobogganning run.  The area in King George Square, in front of city hall, has been cordoned off.  The technical people who take care of these things spent about 10 days building a rink that is supposed to be able to stay frozen up to 25C.  It was "only" 22C today, but the parts of the ice that were in the sun were melting.  The ice is open air so any rain will wreak a bit of havoc.

Day-time skating in Brisbane

Questions about the outdoor skating rink in the tropics aside, this is a terrific idea and people here are really embracing it!  Ice time is booked by the hour and costs $20 for time plus another $7 for skate rental...so $27 for about 99% of the population who don't own their own skates!  There is an ice-hockey team on the Gold Coast (the Blue-Tongues) that are quite popluar, but skating is not a normal Australian past time.  It is great to see the line-ups of people waiting to get on the ice, or the kids on the tobogganing run.  All around King George Square there are warm-up huts with Chai Lattes and Gluhwein, German sausage huts and places to get some warm Hungarian goulash.  Since 15C is considered really cold here, these places will do a booming business in the evenings when the temp drops.

King George Square at night

There are many Canadians living in Brisbane, as we saw from the incredibly crowded Stanley Cup game 5 broadcast on Saturday morning.  We joined a friend who had made a reservation and the entire pub was packed with hockey fans.  Mostly the crowd was Canadians but many Aussies like the game for the pace and the big hits.  No takers on curling yet, but we'll get them next year!