Brisbane

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We arrived in Brisbane just before lunchtime on Sunday & got collect from the bus station by a mini bus to take us to Palace Backpackers where we were staying. We couldn't check in so we put our stuff in storage & headed into the City for some shopping & a look around. We had planned to go to Air New Zealand to change our flights but it wasn't open so we thought we could did it on Monday.

Claire helped me buy some clothes & shoes & stuff so I didn't look a complete tramp for when Andy arrived in Sydney; we had a coffee & then headed back to the hostel to make tea. We had some wine & didn't really do a lot, Richmond was supposed to meet us but he hadn't been able to get the bus on Sunday so would be arriving on Monday.

On Monday we got up & were about to head to Air New Zealand to change our flights then realised it would be closed as it was a bank holiday. I would like to add that this bank holiday was for the Queen's Birthday, our Queen - Elizabeth, for which does the United Kingdom get a bank holiday? No! But Australia does, it all seemed a bit unfair to Claire & I!

So we went round some more shops, made some lunch & took it with us & went for a walk through the city & headed to Southbank, walking over the Brisbane River, to the manmade beach where we sat & had a mini picnic in the sunshine. We had a lie down, a little afternoon nap & read our books & listened to ipods, nice & relaxing.

We walked back through the Botanical Gardens & attempted to locate Rich. We eventually found him at about 5pm had a quick catch up & made tea. We headed to the Down Under Bar, (under the hostel) & had three jugs of Snakebite & Raspberry. Claire & I were shattered & almost feel asleep on Rich so we headed back to our room & had a chat before we did actually fall asleep! Poor Rich! It was so lovely to see him & talk about the good old days in Asia. We arranged to meet him again in a couple of weeks in Sydney when Michael & Andy would be here.

On Tuesday we had a quick cup of tea before having to carry our bags across the city to the bus station to get the bus at 7am to Byron Bay, that was hard work!

Brisbane was ok, a bit like any other city really, it was nice to see Rich & to have a quick look around the city before heading to Byron Bay which we had heard brilliant things about, (Rich had spent eight weeks there or something ridiculous like that!)

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Photos

More views of the city
As you can see my photos of Brisbane are limited!