Having stayed up late reading, getting six hours sleep and waking in a better mood I was up on deck by 7.30am with coffee for my first look at Brisbane.

Probably my last look at Brisbane too. I’m not sure we’re even in the same county. Yes, that picture includes a cluster of skyscrapers 25km away, representing the capital of Queensland.

I looked at the facilities by the dock. Sorry, let me correct that. I looked for facilities by the dock. There’s.. a car park.

It’s reasonable to suggest that my annoyance has returned, and if anything escalated. That was before 8am, when a tannoy announcement that people could go assure coincided with a phone call from Guest Services.

They’d been notified of my overnight complaint to their head office. Their response was really quite remarkable: He was ringing to let me know that there was a shuttle bus that I could take to get into Brisbane, for just $25.

So faced with an unhappy customer that’s expressed dissatisfaction in person and followed with a written complaint, he really thought “Give us money or be left stood on a commercial dock several miles from anywhere” was going to make me happy? I was almost too astonished to get angry about it.

I did disembark, walked several hundred metres through a tent tunnel to reach a terminal building. air conditioned, locals greeting people with maps and guidance. A lovely old lady confirmed that there’s nothing here, no public transport, no way to get anywhere except bus or taxi – and a taxi to even the nearest public transport would be $52 each way.

I’m refusing to give money to the cruise line for a transfer into Brisbane so instead I sat at the tiny canteen type seating area, a single counter serving coffee for $5 a cup.

They also have internet, so I can actually take a look and see where we are.

There is actually an ancient fort in a park just a 5km walk away. Well, 5km if you cut through the oil refinery, otherwise it’s 9km each way, industrial port and dual carriageway the entire distance. I decided to skip it.

An email from the cruise line, acknowledging that they received my complaint. Yeah, I’d guessed that from the phone call. They’re going to have to work hard to avoid a trade descriptions based refund.

On the plus side: The tiny cafe have banana bread. This is an Australian staple I can happily get used to. Indeed, a slice of that and suddenly life is fine once more.