Koala cuddling in Brisbane

---

Bry speaking: Cairns was getting to be a bit of a drag with serious rain every 10 mins or so. So, Brisbane was a welcome change. We flew in and got the train into town. Then on arriving we succeeded in walking right around the block to our hostel, which if we'd just turned left would have been all of two minutes away. The room was the oddest yet - in the middle of the building with corridors on all four sides and no windows, but reasonably comfortable. A rip off if you ask me, but all Aussie accomodation seems overpriced to me. Brisbane is a pretty cool city, lots of young trendies. Although their particular take on trend did make me giggle a little. Now, this may also be fashionable at home (so apologies if I'm offending anyone indulging in the latest of looks) but all the girls seem to partial to what can only be described as a maternity smock, occiasionally twinned with a lovely pair of leggings. If not that then a mini skirt with braces... I had thought I'd seen the last of that sort of silliness with the sad demise of Bananarama.

Highlight for me was visiting the Koala sanctury. We hopped on a local bus, which was strangely full of foreigners, all of whom disembarked at the 'Lone Pine Koala Sanctury' just out of town. They definitely win Australia's cutest animal prize - but their athleticism is hardly going to contribute to the Aussie olympic medal haul - what with sleeping 20 hrs a day and all. I've only ever managed 16 myself. The real treat was seeing a mother and baby. They have pouch like Roos, there was one Mum with a littlun who kept popping in and out to say Hi and climb around. Totally gorgeous. That said, the Pythons were pretty awsome too. Not so cute obviously. We saw more Kangaroos, this time in a more natural seeming environment - about 4 acres of open land with a number of different types of Roos. We sat for a while in the place they all go to chill out, it was pretty special just to sit with them all snoozing around us peacefully.

Managed to pack in an afternoon's bowling (Tom won of course), some popcorn at the cinema and a night out at an uber-cool restaurant. So cool in fact that there was no signage at the entrance. The dining room was split into little curtained boothes in Japanese style floor seating and remarkable taste in music... Leonard Cohen's 'The Future' and '10 New Songs' albums played back to back.

---

Photos

You've seen one, you've seen them all
Tom looks so chilled hanging out with the roos, you'd think he'd done it all his life.

Funky street art
All the junction boxes here have been painted with funky graffiti style art... much more imaginiative than home.

Aussie watching
Hanging out at a cool coffee shop in Brisbane's central shopping area wathcing the world go by.

Comments

[Chezzer]

Not wrong
Nope - you're not wrong - all wearing maternaty dresses and 80s leggings here too - ASDA doing a roaring trade. Big Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, for this part of the trip xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx