The bright lights and bars of Brisbane

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We left Surfer Paradise in the morning and drove an hour north towards the state Capital of Brisbane. We stopped briefly next to the harbor on our way out of Surfers to cook ourselves the world largest hot dog! We had some sausages left over from the BBQ yesterday, so I suggested that we buy a French stick of bread and chop it in half to make a hotdog, well in actually fact it turned into a hotdog that was the size as my arm!!! My eyes really are bigger than my belly at time, but never the less I still polished it all off all the same!

Brisbane is Australia 3rd largest city and is said to be a very laid back city and totally different from Sydney, it is also blessed with a lovely climate all year round, a lot better than al the rain and wind Sydney has been getting.
Since arriving in Australia nearly 3 months ago I haven’t yet stayed in hostel, so arriving in Brisbane and checking in the hostel was exciting especially when I seen they had a bar down stairs and a BBQ on every evening! We got sorted in our dorm which we where sharing with 6 other people and then of course went straight to the bar for a few beers, by this time the BBQ had started and the smell was far too tempting to turn down so a big double burger was also in order. Having now been feed and watered we thought we now needed to walk it off by having a quick stroll into the city to see what it had to offer.
Emily and I walked around all evening looking around the CBD, we found a huge old building light up with some cool purple lights (think it was a big casino), we stopped at few bars and then walked over to the south bank of the river that surround Brisbane‘s CBD. This gave us a beautifully lit up view of the centre of Brisbane with all the multicolored lights of the high rise buildings.

The next day I got up early and headed into town by myself to go and meet my mate Lewis (from back in England) who was in Brisbane for the day for a job interview, he was also with his Australian house mate Mark who is mad as a hatter. Soon after I met him Lewis received a call to say that the interview had been cancelled which he was definitely not happy about, so we all decided to have good old catch up over a quick beer even though it was only 10.30 in the morning!!! Well this one quick beer lead to another to another until we’ll all had a couple of rounds each and we were all in high sprits and having a great laugh. Lewis and I had a great catch up and talked about what we have been up to and what we thought of Australia so far etc, I especially bored the other two with some on the many stories of my travels. With most of my conversations starting; when I was in Thailand…….. Or when I was in Cambodia……. I could here the other two thinking SHUT UP by the 3rd of 4th beer ha-ha.
By the time Mark and Lewis had to catch the train at around 3 we were all feeling a little worse for wear and I was definitely in need of some food. So much for me and Lewis doing a day of sight seeing and exploration around the city, we only managed to see the inside of two bars! Oh well never mind, It was really great to catch up with him and to hear what he thought of Australia too and was now really looking forward to going and staying at there house of a while when I leave Brisbane.

I managed to have a rather tasty hungry jacks which is Australians version of burger king, I say tasty but I think it was mainly the beer that had made it taste so good as I have had them before and they don’t normally attack my taste buds in that way! But it did do the trick and allowed me to have a quite walk through the city during the day. I walked around for a couple of hours before heading back to the hostel where the mid day beers and the walking suddenly caught up with me and I passed out for most of the evening on my bed!! I had just remembered why I don’t drink in middle of the day!!

In the evening I had meet back up with Emily and we took a walk back into town for something to eat, but on the way we stopped at a 7-11 and seen one of the funniest sights. I was so hungry I walked straight to the sweets and crisp’s at the back of the shop and totally walked straight past a bloke asleep on the counter. As I turned around and walked to the till to pay for my munchies I looked at this young lad that had literally fallen asleep while standing, he now had his torso and head on the counter and was completely out of it. The bloke behind the counter just shrugged his shoulders and said that he had tried to move him but couldn’t and that he had been there for nearly an hour in that same half stood position with his head on the counter dribbling. It was such a funny sight I didn’t know what to do and it took all my effort not to piss my self laughing. I was just about to offer the shop owner a hand to move him when a few of his drunken mates finally came in a dragged him out of the shop by his arms after giving him a few punches and kicks to wake him up!!

The next day Emily and I decided to go and explore the area the other side on the river called ‘south bank’ the same place we walked to the other night. It turned out to be a great walk though a long park with loads of crazing modern architecture and sculptures. The park seemed to be split into little areas including a small rainforest walk and a section with an amazingly well carved wooden Burmese temple (haven’t seen one of these since leaving Asia). But by far the best bit of the whole area was the ‘street beach’ which was like a big lake surrounded by sand and trees and even had its own life guard!! It was stunning and a real surprise to find in the middle of a large city!
We both also had a look inside the cultural center and seen a huge skeleton of a T-rex type dinosaur and other life size models of all kinds of animals and mammals ranging from Humpback whales to tigers, polar bears, to tiny possums and snakes. Also in this section their were out lines of other ‘mega’ creatures that used to populate Australia thousands of years ago, like 20 foot high kangaroos and crocodiles half the length of a basketball pitch - all very interesting, just glad there not around now as the animals they have in this country are dangerous enough!

On the walk back to the hostel we stopped in quickly at the town hall and caught the lift to the top viewing platform to give us a birds eye view of the city below, but as it wasn’t actually that high and since the town hall was first built it has now been surrounded by huge skyscrapers which made the view was pretty poor and uninteresting. Luckily it was free so it didn’t bother us that much.

I had decided I had seen all I had wanted to see in Brisbane, it is a lovely laidback city, no where near as hectic and busy as Sydney was but not nearly as beautiful either, I’m not saying that it isn’t beautiful in it own way but it just didn’t seem to have that extra something that distinguished it from all other cities in the world.
By now Emily was running low on money and new that when we got to Brisbane she would need to find a job and settle down for a bit, I on the other hand was going to head up to the Sunshine Coast and stay with Lewis and his girlfriend Ria for a while.
So once back at the hostel Emily and I said our goodbyes to one another and I hit the road once again on my own. I had really enjoyed the past months travel up from Sydney to Brisbane with her, we have seen and done a huge amount and had a great laugh but the time has now come to part ways and do our own thing.

So after a few goodbyes and good luck’s my next stop was Lewis and Ria’s where I look forward to my own comfortable bed in a room to myself and having a fridge were I can store milk to have proper cup of tea with. Only down side is that I have told myself that I need to get a job for a few weeks until my Mum flies out to meet me which is something I am definitely not looking forward to! (A job that is).

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