Missing Nimbin

Week two in Brisbane, and we're both missing Nimbin already. We checked out Paddington, the only central Brisbane district we hadn't explored yet. It's reminiscent of Parnell in Auckland: Climbing up a hill, and with pleasant converted queenslanders all in a row selling retro nik-naks and overpriced (but delicious) spiced hot chocolate, flat whites , lamingtons, and Queensland cakes. After buying some retro nik-naks (really, there's bugger all else to do) we had flat whites and a preposterously large slice of Queensland cake.
Sunday morning, we took advantage again of being on the West side of town, and drove round the corner (less than 5 minutes, in fact) past the botanical gardens and up to the Mount Coot-Tha lookout. There's a popular cafe and picnic spot at the top, as it's the highest point in Brisbane, and you get a great view of the skyline and beyond to the ocean. From there we walked into the park and followed an aboriginal art trail for a couple of kilometres - at a leisurely pace, of course.
On Sunday afternoon we scored a real win. Knowing we'd need a room in Brisbane for about 9 weeks after our current house-sitting stint ends, so that C can see out her contract, we'd (fairly optimistically) put up posters around West End, in the hope there'd be a friendly house-share with a spare room. A lass phoned us on Sunday (the only phone call we got, after putting up 10 posters around West End) and we're going to move into a very cheap room in the heart of West End - there's a beautiful, quiet back garden, broadband access in the room, and fun, progressive housemates... We'll soon see if there's a catch!
My contract with Gensolve starts next week, and not only are the sterling chaps there allowing me to do all my work from the comfort of home, they are also supplying me with a snazzy new laptop, and latest versions of the software I need (this should keep my inner nerd well fed and happy for a few weeks). Switching from software development to technical writing, despite the inevitable paycut, is working out more or less as I'd hoped thus far - there is lots of demand, few good people in the game, no chance of my role being outsourced to a non-english-native-speaking country, and a good 20 years' worth of Moore's law before any significant chunk of the work can be automated away. The only catch is that paycut...