The Curse of Brisbane.... CRIKEY!

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Our 12 hour bus ride from Sydney to byron bay wasn't as bad as we though, probably due to the fact the we slept pretty much all the way! We did make a stop at a survise station made to look like Ayres Rock and another with a giant Prawn on top..... Other than that it was sleeping all the way! We arrived in byron Bay at 10:30am and were kindly picked up by the hostel and given a little tour of the town. The beach was 30 seconds walk straight out of the back of the hostel which was amazing. We spent the afternoon laying on the beach and swimming in the sea, its such a hard life! This prettymuch set the tone for our first few days in Byron. The town itself is small which made a nice change after the hustle and bustle of Sydney.

On Tuesday we had our first Surf lesson. We walked all the way to the surf school from our hostel only to be driven all the way back as we would be learning on the beach right outside the hostel. There were only 3 in our group including us. We were first given a quick lesson on paddling and getting on and off before going to practice this in the sea. After 20 mins of this we were back on the beach learning how to stand up, its kinda like yoga- arch up, bum up, legs forward, bend knees and up you get! So after doing this a fair few times on the sand we tried our luck in the sea. After a few times we both manged to stand up and had a great time. Although we are not quite pro surfers just yet. Unfortunately the "waterproof camera" wasn't quite as waterproof as our instructor thought. Only about 7 photos were copied over to their PC before the whole thing crashed and on inspection was covered in water. Ther still tried to sell us these for $20 but there was only one of us and the rest were the other girl on our lesson. We tried to barter with them as you usually get 30 for $20 but they weren't having any of it. Their loss cos it resulted in them not selling any. What better way to unwind after the surf lesson than to sunbathe on the beach!

There was another day of laying on the beach before our tour of Nimbin on Thursday. Nimbin is a little Hippy town in the hills near Byron. It turned into a hippy town after the Vietnam war when all the students, hippies etc decided to have a big party and a lot of them didn't leave. Then the dairy industry collapsed and they all clubbed together for the cheap land and built lots of comunes with tipees and tree houses! It isn't the biggest of places so were were only there about an hour before heading off for a nice BBQ. Veggie of course! We did go into the "museum" but felt slightly aggrieved at paying our $5 donation before we went in, as the "museum" was just 4 rooms randomly painted with stuff, and not really worth the $5 donation! After the BBQ our driver took us to a swimming hole near Minyon Falls where you could jump off the cliff into the water below. Joe had a great time jumping in but Kim was still full after the impressive BBQ lunch!

We made friends with a Swedish couple who were stying in our room and decided to all go out to the Beach Hotel on Friday night for some drinks and to watch the band. It was good fun and after we headed to the 23 (yes 23 not a typo) hour bakery and shared some cakes!

We had planned on another day on the beach on Saturday as it was our last day in Byron Bay but it poured with rain and we ended up playing monopoly and packing. That evening when it had stopped we all tried to walk to the lighthouse which is the most easterly point in Australia. It didn't turn out to be the best signposted walk and we got a bit lost therfore not quite making it to the lighthouse as we were all very hungry and had been walking for about 2 hours!

We left Byron Bay the next morning and took the coach to Surfers Paradise, only a 2 hour trip this time! It rained all the way though and was still pouring down when we arrived. Surfers Paradise is not exactly paradise when you're stuck in a tropical thunderstorm for 3 days! We had a walk around to explore but got quite wet so gave up and headed back to the hostel. Monday it rained.... tuesday it rained so we went to the Cinema.... Wednesday was meant to be the worst day of the week but it was just cloudly and a bit cold! By the end of our week in Surfers the sun decided to come out to play so we made the most of it by getting some quality time in at the beach as well as playing tennis and swimming in the pool. A very active end to the week!

By the time Sunday came around we were more than ready to leave surfers. We got our bus to Brisbane and arrived at our hostel with no problems. Or so we thought....

The following account is a true story. It is neither made up or exagerated. Feel free to be disgusted and share in the pain...

The rather strange woman who let us into our room wasn't quite all there! We got put in the wrong room and were told we would have to move the next day, which was fine, but a bit annoying as we had booked it 2 weeks ago. Anyway, we spent the afternoon taking in Brisbane and getting our bearings, by the time we got back to the hostel we had walked quite a few miles and were ready for a relaxing night watching TV. So we ventured into the kitchen to cook another delicious meal of beans on toast (with pancakes for after thought, yum!) and opened the cuboard to find several dead cockroaches and hundreds of mouse droppings.... yum! After finding a cuboard that wasn't encrusted with filth we washed everything twice and then had our food. After we ate and had a shower (it's so hot and sticky at the moment you sweat so much) we were laying on the bed watching TV and felt a bit itchy.... We pulled back the covers on the bed to find it crawling with bed bugs. They looked like they had a good meal off of us so we went down to the manager who wasn't there!

After waiting for an hour for her to get back we had a conversation with a girl who was in another room who was originally in our room and she got covered in bites before they moved rooms. So the manager finally returned and acted really suprised and asked to see our bed. Annoyingly they all retreated to the safety of the matress but luckily we took photos! Ha! The woman then tried to say no-one else had been in the room for several weeks, but when we arrived the bed was un-made and someone had checked out that morning. The manager quickly changed her mind "Oh, yes, someone was in there last night but didn't say anything.". Then they tried to pretend they had never seen them before even though the girl had told us she was bitten in there before. They tried to move us to a room that had no lock on the door.... by this point, also after they tried to suggest we brought the bed bugs in... we had had enough and demanded our money back, called a taxi and headed to another hostel. By this time it was nearly midnight, we were very tired and annoyed and finally got to our new room which the lock was broken on! So someone had to stay in the room at all times or we can't get back in! Also it stunk of B.O and cheap goon.

So we had a bit of an adventure and needed some sleep, then at about 3am we were woken up by a load of drunken guys piling in through the window screaming and shouting. They screamed abuse out of the window to some girls, and when the girls came to confront them she decided to take off her top. Classy girl. This went on for another hour listening to them talk about their fights that evening then finally fell asleep with one of them shouting and swearing in his sleep.

Then next morning we had enough and left first thing in the morning (making sure we slammed the door on the way out to wake them up, haha!) and checked into a private room. That day we made plan's for our trip down the east coast and Thailand as well as doing a few things around Brisbane. Nothing too exciting, so when we went to go to bed that night guess what we found in our new bed.... no, not loud drunken English guys, but more bed bugs!!! So we had to move rooms again at 11pm and finally found a bed without bugs. We had this new room for a couple of nights before checking into our new dorm.

All seemed well and we were up at 6.30 am on Thursday (Valentines Day) as we had a job delivering bunches of flowers for $5 a bunch. But Kim started scratching her arm and on further inspection we discovered more bed bugs in her bed!!! So after a day of walking around the centre of Brisbane for 8 hours without a break all we wanted to do was crash out but we had to move rooms AGAIN, wash ALL of our clothes and get our bags sprayed. Needless to say, we were pretty livid, as was our Canadian room mate! So we got moved again for 2 nights. When it was time for us to move into our dorm we thought we would check the matresses out before moving our bags up 4 floors again, and its a good job we did as there were bugs in that room too. We finally got a clean room with 4 days left! Now if you're wondering why we didn't leave this hostel, it's not because we didn't try. Everywhere in Brisbane was full (apart from the Hilton but we'd heard bad things about that place, apparently its not that nice....) so we had no choice but to stick it out!

Anyway, in between being eaten by bugs, washing out clothes and moving rooms we did actually do some other stuff. We went to the museum of Queensland which had a good exhibit on Aboriginal history and local wildlife. We took a few walks through southbank. Brisbane is not actually on the coast, but on the river that shares its name, so in the gardens at southbank they have made a fake beach with a pool you can swim in. There is also a market there at the weekends which kept us entertained for a while.

Surprise surprise it has also rained a bit while we've been here but we were lucky that it held off for our trip to AUSTRALIA ZOO! Home of the late, great Steve Irwin! CRIKEY! We took the train early monday morning to get a full day zoo experience! Our first stop was to cuddle a Koala! She was 2 years old and smelt a bit, but was very cute and soft. We walked through the Kangaroo Heaven enclosure and headed to feed the Elephants! We fed an elephant called Bimbo who came to the zoo when she was rescued from the circus. All the animals at the zoo have really large enclosures, not cramped or overcrowded. The zoo is currently just over 70 acres, but will eventually be 1000 acres in size! And they already own all the land! When we fed the elephants they came up into their viewing enclosure, but out the back they have another huge enclosure where they normally live. We checked out the tigers who were nearby, before heading to the Crocoseum for the morning show!

First up was the snake display, followed by the birds, then the crocodiles! We ended up seeing the show twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon! The croc in the afternoon's show was the biggest they have at the zoo and came pretty close to biting the handler's arm off when he was offering him meat! There are of course loads of other animals to check out, otters, camels, wallabies, wombats, snakes...... etc! This made up for the rest of our miserable Brisbane hostel experience and we had an awesome day. The rain even held off until just as we were getting on the bus to the train station. WHAT A RIPPER!

So anyway, our next stop is Perth on wednesday for 2 weeks! And here's a tip for anyone coming to Brisbane.... DON'T STAY AT PALACE CENTRAL BACKPACKERS!!!!!!!!!!

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Photos

Byron Shire..
ahh the Shire