Garth and Florane

I have reached Brisbane, and am once more the happy recipient of the fabulous Australian hospitality.

The people who welcomed me here are Garth and Florane. Garth is Richard's uncle and Florane is his wife. They have three children and nine grandchildren, and a young cat (we're trying to call him Monty and not Tiger :).

They live in a vintage "Queenslander" type of house that is more than 100 years old. It is built entirely from wood and stands on stumps on the slope of a hill. The ceiling is more than 3 metres high, and the stumps are 2 m high on one side of the building and 6 m on the other! As the name suggests, this style of architecture is typical for Queensland. The stumps have three assets: they cool the house in summer, keep it dry when there is heavy rain or floods, and they help to keep the white ants (termites) out.

Garth is a retired professor, a doctor of biology and chemistry. Before he came here, he's lived not only in various places around Australia but also for longer periods in Britain and North America -- and even in Antarctica for a while! He gave me a nice tour of his garden and we immediately had interesting conversations on various topics. Florane is a very gifted painter, and I admired her paintings around the house.

I had already thought Sydney to look like a botanical garden. But now here, in Brisbane, the vegetation is even lusher, with palm trees and all kinds of subtropical plants in the suburban gardens. The European trees with their yellow autumn leaves are behind me now -- they need frost in winter and they don't get that here.