Brisbane

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23/2

We got up and out of our room ready for our airport transfer we had booked. We got picked up at 8.50 outside of our hotel and headed to Proserpine airport, with yet another crazy driver- I thought he was trying to fly us there in the van!! We got to the airport and checked in. There was only one little cafe in the airport- it was very small. We didn't have too long to wait before our flight, and it didn't take too long to get to Brisbane. We booked a transfer to our hotel with connexion and had to wait for the bus at 1.30. After a little while we were transferred onto a smaller bus, which was going to the other side of the river that we were staying on. We got to our hotel and checked in- our room was lovely- an apartment with a little kitchen with microwave and hob, which was good as meant we could cook for ourselves. We also had a bath in the bathroom! We showered and got changed and then we headed out into the city to meet Chantelle's neighbours from Camber, who were out visiting family. The owners of the hotel gave us some information on getting around and directions to the citycat- the catamaran that goes along the river into the city, with lots of stops on either side. We walked to the nearest stop, which was only a 5 minute walk away. It cost us $5.60 for a 2 hour ticket for zones 1&2. We got off at Riverside park stop and met Ron and Kathy at a pub/restaurant called Pig n Whistle. Ron kindly bought us a Magners and we chatted for an hour or two, then Chantelle and I went to Wagamama for dinner as we were starving after not eating all day. We headed back to the citycat to get back to the hotel, seeing some disgusting giant bats on the way. We had to buy another ticket as we had been over two hours. We headed to IGA supermarket on the way back to the hotel to get some drinks and cereal for breakfast. Our hotel had free wifi which was great and we managed a few Skype calls before bed.

24/2

Happy Birthday to ME!!! (And Suzie of course!) I woke up around 7.30 (too excited!) and skyped mum and dad whilst opening all my cards and presents that had been sent to Debbie's (plus a few I'd been given before we left!) Everyone had been very generous and I got lots of Australian dollars to spend, and Chantelle bought me some lovely earrings and theme park tickets for surfers paradise yay! We had arranged to go to Lone Pine Koala sanctuary today, as I have always wanted to hold a koala- one of my favourite animals- and we had saved it especially for today. Chantelle had found a boat that goes to the sanctuary, as it is quite far out of the city, and is right on the river. We had to get the citycat to get to the stop where the koala boat went from. We bought our entry ticket on the boat as we got a slight discount. We only got a single for the boat as it only gave us about 2 and a half hours in the park, and we knew we'd want longer. It took around an hour and 15 minutes to get there on the boat. The sanctuary was amazing. As soon as we walked in we saw cute, cuddly koalas sitting in the trees. We bought some kangaroo food and went into the roo enclosure to feed them. I was very wary to start with, not wanting to get too close, but Chantelle got stuck right in feeding them.after a while I realised they were gentle, so I joined in, and there were some quite small ones,which we enjoyed feeding. We had a look at some of the koalas and the bought some photo packages for koala cuddles. Our first cuddle was withTeresa, she wasn't too big and was very sweet, she didn't dig her claws in too much either! We spent a lovely day walking around, listening to the koala talk and I had 2 more koala cuddles- one with a big one called Rodney and another called Devoilet. I loved it! We fed the Roos again, and watched a little baby koala for ages, riding around on its mother's back, so tiny and cute. We collected all our photos and postcard pictures and headed off to wait for the bus back into the city. We got off around Southbank station and got the citycat back the last part of the way, as we didn't know where the bus stopped and we needed to cross the river. We headed back to our hotel and got ready to go out for dinner- our tickets were still valid for the citycat from earlier. We went for dinner around the Southbank, where we were told there were lots of restaurants. We had dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant, where we had some yummy pasta and a bottle of cava for a birthday treat. We had a lovely evening, and headed back to our hotel on the citycat, though it started raining. We skyped family and opened my last presents from the Neilson's- lots of goodies, including English dairy milk! Yum! We were very tired after a busy but brilliant day! 25/2 We woke up to awful rain today, so we decided we would be lazy, as there didn't look like there would be any let up with the rain. We stayed in all day, except to go to IGA to get some shopping so we could cook in our apartment. We waited until we were hungry and headed out, it absolutely chucked it down. We got soaked through within a few minutes. We cooked a yummy chicken tonight for our dinner, with potatoes and vegetables. We bought some cake to have a belated (sort of) birthday cake. We skyped Claire to wish her happy birthday and see her open her package I sent. It was a very lazy day, but after being so busy, it was nice to relax and do nothing. 26/2 The weather was dreadful again today so we decided to stay in again as there wasn't anything much we could do in Brisbane in the rain. We did our washing and wrote some postcards. We made bacon sandwiched for lunch, yummy! We had a relaxing afternoon and evening and cooked tortellini for dinners which wasn't very nice but filled us up. It was nice to relax again, though we were starting to get a little cabin fever! Thank god for free wifi at the hotel! 27/2 The weather seemed a little better today, thankfully, so we decided to venture out. We headed to the city cat- the river was so high after all the rain, and there was talk of flooding. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but headed towards the city. It started to rain again as we were on the citycat, so we decided to head to Southbank to the cinema we had seen, to see if there was anything on. We both wanted to watch Silver Linings Playbook, so we got tickets for this, for a bargain $6.50, but it didn't start fora while, so we headed to San Churro next door, where we shared churros with a chocolate dip-yum! We headed back to the cinema- I was disgraced to discover there was no sweet popcorn at the cinema! We sat down to watch the film, and Jake, from our new favourite program- My Kitchen Rules- came in and sat down in front of us! We felt like we were celeb spotting! After the film we walked into the city to find the Greyhound office we needed for our bus tomorrow. We had heard of flooding and road closures, so we went to check on our bus. The receptionist said it wasn't looking good for our bus to be running tomorrow as they were all cancelled for today. Uh oh! We walked through the city for a look around and headed to the Riverside stop so we could the citycat back to our stop. We went back to our hotel and I rang our hotel we had booked for our next night. The manager of the hotel said he was pretty certain the road would be open and that our bus should run tomorrow, so we just kept our fingers crossed. He was very good, saying we wouldn't be charged if we didn't make it. We cooked a left-over dinner of potatoes, bacon, broccoli and onions. It was very tasty! We skyped home and then had to pack up ready to check out and hope that our bus was going to run in the morning!

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