In the Heat of the Night

And that's it folks - we've just headed back to Wales via Dubai with an undulating temperature gradient starting at 35°C in Brisbane a week ago, up to 40°C in Dubai on Monday and 10°C in Prestatyn when we arrived last night (not many tourists here then!)

Dubai is fairly nuts - looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Populated mostly by Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis and Filipinos who form over 80% of the population and who drive the taxis, staff the bars and hotel desks and build the skyscrapers - all paid for by the tourists. What an excellent business model! The emirate folk just stand back and coin it. What I find difficult to follow is the fact that the people who really enjoy this are the same people who think that heaven is spending all day at the Trafford Centre. It's also rather hot and humid and expensive.

One of the really bizarre sights in Dubai is the skyscraper in the picture on the right - this is the Al Yacoub tower which looks like Big Ben but is even taller than the Shard which is the highest building in London. Trundling along in the taxi through central Dubai you look at all the futuristic towers reaching into the sky and all of a sudden there's a giant Big Ben. Oh dear some of these guys have a great sense of humour! It appears that Dubai is not quite at the top of the list of countries which have a per head consumption global resources footprint but they're not far behind Qatar which heads the list (must be something to do with the World Cup - why didn't they give it to San Marino!)  OK so the real gripes about Dubai are the temperature (too hot to run between March and November) and the ale which is verboten (although we found some illicit Heineken at £8 a pint - phew!) On the upside I encountered Arabic food which wasn't bad at all, meze is wonderful and my favourite was a chili lebnal (I think that was what it was called) which is a bit like cheesecake infused with herbs, garlic and chilli peppers!)

Thick Knees in Australia

Right in the middle of Brisbane we came across a couple of these fellows lurking in the undergrowth. In the city botanical gardens, which are quite small and surrounded by large office blocks we spotted them,  poised to do something, we’re not quite sure what. They are known as Bush Stone Curlews, also called Bush Thick Knees, about knee high (my knees!) and nobody else seemed to have spotted them so well were they camouflaged. They had a peculiar trick of dropping their heads to one side as if to listen for bombers overhead and a most interesting low buzzing sound which was their contribution to the wildlife sounds of the city.

 Nice selection of in house brewed beer at the Brewhouse Brisbane on Thursday night! The American Pale Ale went down well as did the Lady Marmalade Apricot Amber Ale but the surprise to us was the presence, among lots of Aussie beers, of bottles of Buxton Brewery ales - how did they get here??

Rigorous performance analysis of our latest parkrun at South Bank Brisbane has revealed that factors such as the high humidity, size of field (400+ runners), a viral affliction during previous week and lack of knowledge of the course, cannot alone account for the dismal time of 21.17 and the key overriding factor was eventually scientifically determined to be general malaise and shortage of energy due to a lack of beer the night before. Vicky suffered too and came in with a time of 34.42.