The Jo Guest Posse – Brisbane. Keg party and the XXXX tours

The New Year started well, we had a party to arrange but we needed somewhere to hold this.  We thought about having it at the hostel but this would mean that everyone who was at the hostel at the time would be involved and we’d prefer it to just be us and our friends.  As luck would have it some of our mates had moved out of the hostel and into an apartment just up the road. We arranged a date with them and got in touch with the Story Bridge Hotel and arranged to collect our keg.  There were a couple of things we had not counted on.  The first was the weight of 88 pints of beer in a barrel; the second was our mate’s apartment being on the third floor with no lift.

We did manage to get the beer into its intended position quite easily in the end as there were enough of us to man handle the barrel up the stairs.  The promise of free beer is a good motivation tool so we had no shortage of people willing to help.  Pat had offered us the use of his camper van to transport the keg and this was a huge help.

The apartment was quite a good location for the party as it turns out, it lay back from the road so we could see people going past us but we were far away enough to not cause any disturbance.  We could also see who was on their way to the party as the balcony overlooked the front stairs.  After a while we realised that there was another advantage to this.  As well as being able to see the people who were arriving we were also in a great position to ambush them on the way up.  Pretty soon we had gathered a number of bowls and filled them with water ready for the next unsuspecting victim.  Everyone took it in good humour but we did decide to give up the game when Ian decided that just throwing the water wasn’t enough and accidentally let go of the bowl, if it wasn’t for the steel rails on the staircase creating a barrier then I am sure the dish would have hit the poor guy who was on his way up the stairs, instead it shattered just a few inches behind him and he ducked out of the way just in time. 

Apart from this mishap the party was a great success, plenty of people turned up but this did mean that the beer ran out early. By this time we were all having fun and happy to add to a kitty so we could go and get more supplies to keep the party going.

When ever we were at a loose end in Brisbane there was always one place we could go for a fun afternoon.  I think in the time I spent in Brisbane this suggestion came up about 4 times.  This was the XXXX tour, the Castlemaine XXXX brewery was only a short walk from the hostel and every day they did a tour to show you the brewing process and the history of the brewery etc and it was quite interesting and the tour was free.  At the end there was a chance to sample the beers, there would be a tray on the bar with 3 different types of lager and you just tried them to see the differences in strength and flavour.  Or you could just go and have a little bit of a session in the half an hour they allowed before the next group arrived.

One time we took Barb with us, by then we were quite well versed with the whole set up and went through the tour and took a couple of beers each and sat at a table. I was obvious after a few minutes that barb was already getting a little tipsy but had a couple more drinks.  She started to get a little giggly and knocked back a lager, looked at the fluted glass with the picture of the brewery on the front and exclaimed “ I really like these glasses”. Rather than tell her that you were able to buy them for about $2 Kev leaned over and said “You should nick that Glass, Barb”.

We expected the reserved Canadian to be outraged at this idea and just put the glass on the table so were not ready for what happened next.

She looked around her and saw the exit and said in a loud whisper “I Will” before running to the exit, opening the door and racing out as fast as her legs would carry her.  Naturally we thought this was one of the funniest things we had ever seen but the staff in the bar didn’t agree.  They were not concerned about their glass, instead they thought that we had made this poor girl drink too much and assumed she had ran outside to be ill.  They urged us to go after her so we left and began the search for Barb.

We eventually found her in the car park about 500 yards away and took her back to the hostel for a lie down. Afternoon drinking does not agree with everyone and the fresh air assassin had hit her pretty hard this time.

I have no idea what happened to the glass, Barb may have taken it home to Canada, it may have got lost in the travels or there is a good chance that she dropped it during her escape.

At some point we all left the group while the others stayed in Brisbane, Kev went to meet some friends in Sydney for a few weeks and Barb had just announced one day that she was moving on, first to Sydney and then….who knows?

I remember that this was a very emotional day as we had been travelling together for a while and she was always there to chat to or have a laugh with.  Kev obviously took it the hardest as he was the one who brought her into the group in the first place.  We said our goodbyes and there was not a dry eye between us.  One thing was for sure, we were going to miss her. 

We kept expecting it to be a joke and that she would be in the room laughing when we went back to the hostel but when we arrived back from work there was someone else in the room.  Pat had moved in so we had replaced one Canadian with another.

A few days later we were all still feeling pretty low and we heard a noise outside our room, we woke up to see the door to our room was opening and in rushed Barb…I think she had spent 2 days in Sydney and realised that she was not going to have as much fun without us as she had been having with us.

Sadly though the group could not stay together forever and Myself and Ian moved on shortly after.  The CD fair was moving to Canberra and we had been offered a job.