Trent & Judy visit the Treehouse

We went on Show Day (a public holiday in Brisbane, 12 Aug) to the Ekka, a huge fair with rides, games, food, animals, and a lot of people. A few days later Trent walked with us to the summit of Mt Coot-tha, while Judy stayed back and nursed her sore feet.

The Aussie alphabet: A is for "ABC"

Right, the ABC. Like in the US, it's a television and radio network. Unlike in the US, it's public. Kind of like PBS and NPR rolled into one, but with no pledging, because it's actually government funded! Like, the government thinks that public broadcasting is a good idea! There is, unfortunately, no all-news FM station in Brisbane. So we listen to the news on AM, Radio National, which really is national. The traffic and weather updates start in Brisbane, and go clockwise right around the major cities. Very handy if we want to know where the traffic is stuffed up in Melbourne, or how cold it is in Hobart. The AM frequencies here are odd: instead of a 3 or 4 digit number ending in "0", they can be any even number. That Radio National frequency is 936, and the local Brisbane station is at 612. FM stations have the same frequencies as in the US. On TV, there are ABC1, ABC-HD and ABC2. Oh, right, there are ABC shops too, where you can buy books, games, DVDs, that sort of thing. Right now, on ABC2, I'm watching Ioan Gruffudd as Horatio Hornblower.