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Published: September 14th 2012
Well its been a while since the last blog so there’s a fair bit to put in. The plane ride over was long!!! 14 hours in total and overnight. When we finally arrived in Brisbane it was 7 in the morning and neither of us had really slept. We got a taxi from outside the airport as STA travel had failed to pass on our details to their Australian counterparts. This cost a fair amount so not the best start. However when we arrived at the hostel we told them of the problem and they offered to upgrade us to a double room for a few nights to cover the cost of the taxi. This suited Charlotte perfectly and was probably a much better choice than sharing with others in a dorm room. However it was only 8am and the room would not be ready until 1 so we were told to wait. Shattered we figured we'd find somewhere to sit down and rest in the centre of Brisbane and wait until the room was available for a nap.
Now the hostel is in a ideal location, close enough to the city that you can walk there in 2 minutes and also near the major transport links. We opted to walk downhill into the queen street mall. We settled in a food court and had a well deserved break. After a while we tried walking round the city but were basically zombies having gone 30+ hours with no sleep. At 12 we headed back to the hostel and waited there for the room. Once we were told it was ready we headed up and had the best nap ever! At 5pm we woke and had a bite to eat followed by more sleep until morning. And that was our first day in Australia.
The next few days have all blurred together a bit as its been a while since then. We spent the time exploring the city centre, finding where all the food courts were so we knew where lunch was coming from. We also found the supermarkets so we had the option of making our own food. The only problem being the shared kitchen in the hostel. Its cleaned every day but never to the highest standard. We also started to look at options for apartments and jobs in the local area but more on that later.
One of the first places we explored was the botanical gardens. Now for most people who don’t know Brisbane, the city centre lies on the inside of a bend in the river. Basically in the middle of a U. The bottom of the U being where the gardens were. This meant a semicircle of parkland with a river running round the outside. On our first walk round the gardens we met some of the local wildlife. This consisted of very nosey ibis's and rather tame water dragons, (the're the lizard we took a photo of on facebook). Since then we've had a few other walks in the gardens where we found a small boardwalk and a number of other interesting sights.
Another key place in Brisbane is the Southbank. Its just a short walk over one of the many bridges from the city centre. Here theres a nice walk by the river overlooking the city. Also theres a man made beach with pool. Its not heated so quite cool but the locals all keep pointing out the weathers quite cool at the moment (25 Celsius!!!). Hopefully nearer Christmas when it gets up to the mid 30s it should be a bit better. Along the Southbank theres also a number of restaurants with seating looking over the river. Its also currently Brisbane festival so every night theres a laser show from a number of the skyscrapers in the city. Theres also a large barge in the middle of the river with huge lights and lasers and water fountains on to watch from the south bank. Again theres a few photos of this on facebook.
Just next to this is Brisbane museum. Its got a few exhibits about the war, Australias past including Aboriginals and other people who lived in Australia long before it was “discovered”. There’s also huge displays of some of the animals you might encounter in Australia. These were stuffed but certainly an eye opener. Next door is an art display with a huge array of paintings from across the centuries.
After a while we decided we should probably stop having so much fun and start to get down to the more serious issue of money. This meant getting a job, however to get a job you need an address and whilst we had been using the hostel as our address this was only temporary so we started to look into apartments in the city. We found a couple in the city centre and one or two others further out. We arranged to view the places in the centre as we could walk to these in under 5 mins and it meant if we got jobs in the city then we had a short commute. The few places we saw were nothing more than hotel rooms. Fine for a week or two but a bit small for 6 months. We did get excited about a flat on Charlotte Street but the same problem. We also went to see a place a little further out but on the way there we decided it was too far to walk and not accessable so didn't bother with that one.
By now it was also becoming apparent that there wasn't a lot of jobs in the city centre for casual workers. Everybody wanted longer periods of work but we couldn't do this as our visa limits us to 6 months with the same employer. This also lead us to the conclusion that we shouldn't get an apartment if we couldn't find work to support it. This meant we were not in a good place, spending money with nothing coming in and no clear sign of work. We started to think we'd made a mistake with Brisbane and maybe we should move on. However we realised we were being to logical and safe. We needed to take a risk and find a job unlike the ones we've had in the UK. This meant harvest work but its currently spring and theres not a lot to offer so we are currently waiting for the end of the month for jobs to appear in the more rural areas.
This meant we had to spend money more wisely so we could last until then. Of course the next thing we did was book a trip the Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. Now if anyone’s thinking of coming to Brisbane and visiting this amazing place can we recommend CrocConnections with Chris. The zoo itself is over an hour away along a fairly bland motorway, however this guy used to work at the zoo with Steve and knows everything, and I mean everything, about the zoo. He talked at great lengths about everything from Steve himself to all the animals. After this he put a DVD on about the Irwin family and their contributions to conservation and how Australia zoo began.
The zoo is unlike any zoo in the UK. Here you are much closer to the animals and are encouraged to interact with them. One of the first things we found was the kangaroo walk. This is similar to the safaris in the UK but you don't have a car. Instead you walk amongst the kangaroos and can feed and pet them, (see the photos on facebook again). There so tame they don’t even move as you walk up to them instead they look if you have food and then go about their usual business. After we petted a couple we left and moved on to the koala walk. Here the koalas are high in trees and you can stand at the base and pear up at them sleeping. Halfway round though there's a bunch of small trees with koalas in. These are about 6 feet up so in an ideal place to walk up to them and get within 10cm. One of the koalas that had been there as a baby was so tame you could even stroke him. And they are a soft and cuddly as they look! There were many other animals in the zoo and we were forever taking photos so again check facebook for them (Charlotte’s page not Matt’s).
Then another highlight of the zoo was the Crocoseum. This I had seen on TV many times but I didn't realise it was at this zoo. It was an amazing place with only a couple of 4 foot fences between the crowd and the animals area. They started the show with a number of bird displays and explained the birds were not kept in a cage or aviary, instead they chose to stay because they know they get fed! After this they teased us by bring a two foot baby croc out which the handler quickly picked up and carried away. Then followed Graham. He was a big male croc and to best understand again you should check the photos (sorry to keep referring to facebook). The show was amazing and following this we headed of to see the rest of the zoo. We saw elephants, rhinos, giraffes, a tiger show and even another kangaroo walk with a different species. It really was an amazing day and puts other zoos well in their place. We'd definitely recommend this one!
In an attempt to save money we took a walk to the Roma Street Gardens. This was a strange and interesting place with all sorts of fountains, plants, crazy paths and weird buildings. Its a free place and we had fun here though the water dragons were a bit tame for Charlotte’s liking! There was a lot to see and whilst everything was weird nothing seemed out of place. There were silver domes that shot burst of water down a series of waterfalls. There was also a series of steps that were actually a waterfall with fountains in the middle of each step. A huge grassy area covered the middle of the park with a pond and fountain in the centre.
More recently we took a trip to Seaworld (more money saving!) on the Gold Coast. It took a while to get there but once there it was another amazing experience. We saw penguins and polar bears, sharks and starfish! There was a pool with a few rays in that you could pet and feel. There was also a couple of roller-coasters to try which may have scared Charlotte but we managed them both without throwing up! After this we saw the dolphin nursery where young dolphins were kept and cared for. You could get within a meter of them in places. There was also a dolphin show towards the end of the day which featured six dolphins doing all sorts of tricks and disciplines and was very interesting to watch. It was worth mentioning we also got our first view of the sea from here although it was only from the top of the roller-coaster and very brief.
Now we are in a strange place where we are waiting for the harvest to come round and jobs to start becoming more available. Whilst we wait I'm sure there will be more adventures and I’m we'll let you all know what's happening soon so hopefully the blog wont be this long again!
Thanks for reading.
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Daniel
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