Sunny Garden

In July 2000, I headed to Queensland for a holiday. The itinerary involved a few days on the Gold Coast, a few days in Brisbane and then a week or so on the Sunshine Coast. All sounding pretty normal so far, right? Well, think again.

When I first thought about going to Queensland, I figured I should swing by Zigzag Street, and perhaps Baan Thai, and it would be really interesting to see the tennis courts, and the University of Queensland, and so on. Upon hearing all this, a friend made a sarcastic remark about re-enacting the shoe-throwing incident in Broadway. Then the idea hit me, followed closely by her shoe. Hey, I thought, why don't I visit all those places, take a shit load of photos and develop a virtual tour? And so it began.

In preparation for my holiday I re-read all of Nick Earls' novels and, with help from Nick, made lists of all the locations I could visit. Then, with further help from Nick, I cross-referenced all the locations by novel and geographical position. My piece-de-resistance was a Brisbane UBD which I covered with colour coded post-it flags and post-it notes. I was impressed. I think Nick was scared.

All that remained was to convince Rachel, my travel buddy, that we really, really, really needed to spend a couple of days in suburban Brisbane, driving around and taking photos of street signs. I may have suggested this after a few tequila shots. I may have also added the promise that she'd get to meet Nick Earls and then bought her some more tequila shots. There is a lot to be said for tequila, particularly when I'm not drinking it.

Disclaimer:
Sunny Garden is designed, written and maintained by Liz Perkins, in cooperation with Nick Earls, Penguin Books and Random House Australia. Any questions about Sunny Garden should be directed to Liz

All original contents are © Liz Perkins.