The Farther North You Go, The Warmer It Gets

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By some miraculous twist of fate, I was assigned two seats to myself for the overnight bus from Sydney to Brisbane (roughly 16 hours north of Sydney). That made the long night a little easier. I realized also that I had been lucky because speaking to an English guy while waiting for the bus he told me that he had also missed the morning bus but they made him buy a whole new ticket. I only had to pay $4 for a change fee. Plus I managed to stay awake for the ocean view through Newcastle, and I’m told not much else happened after that. I never did get a hold of the other hostel though, to cancel the room, so hopefully they don’t charge me (its not my fault they don’t have an answering machine and no one is ever sitting at the reception desk).

I arrived in Brisbane at 6am. It’s a little warmer here than in Sydney, but that’s to be expected as Brisbane is farther north - one more weird thing I need to remember: the farther north you go, the warmer is gets. I’m staying at the Banana Benders Backpackers, mainly because they have a WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) agent. It is only a few blocks from the bus depot, but I had to sit outside for 45 minutes waiting for reception to open so that I could check in. They assigned me my bed and I promptly went to sleep until a tornado of English girls came blustering in around noon and exploded all of their luggage over the entire room. I tried to visit the Footsteps Gallery that afternoon but they were between shows. Instead I walked around a little and bought groceries. And hallelujah for the grocery prices! I bought a loaf of bread, strawberry jam, spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, cookies, two apples and an orange for less than $10.

Brisbane, as a being unto itself, is not as captivating as Sydney. It doesn’t lend itself as well to a leisurely stroll around town and I’ve never seen so much construction happening in such a tight space. Despite all the industrialization, I don’t actually come across that many people. It does, however, have some charm. The Cultural Centre, for instance, is home to the State Library of Queensland (where have they a display of unusual limited edition books from around the world), the Gallery of Contemporary Art (which had the most imaginative dedication to Michael Jackson I have ever seen), the Queensland Gallery (exhibiting the evolution of painting and sculpture in Brisbane and the surrounding areas), the Queensland Museum (which had a striking gallery of locally and federally endangered species), and the Science Centre and the Performing Arts Centre, neither of which I visited.

I’ve also managed to visit the Old Observatory and Windmill, the Roma Street Parklands, City Hall and the Museum of Brisbane, the Southbank Parklands, the QUT Art Gallery, and the Botanical Gardens. I tried to visit the Parliament House, but government was in session. I walk around everywhere with my big camera with the long lens, because I am apparently my father’s daughter and need to take half a million photos of everything - I can’t help it. Someone even asked me today, as I walked through the Queensland University of Technology campus, if I was taking photographs for an assignment. No, I told him, I’m just a tourist. Ah, he said, so you are taking photos for an assignment then? And he smiled at me.

I try to stay out as much as possible because my hostel isn’t as great as I had first imagined. The hostel itself is nice, but it’s filled to the brim with loud obnoxious people who never seem to do anything. They are all sitting around drinking tea when I leave before lunch and they are still sitting around smoking and playing cards when I get back in the evening. I hear some of them talking about finding work, but no one ever seems to go anywhere. Maybe I’m a rare breed, but I don’t see the point of traveling from France or Germany or Ireland to sit around a hostel all day just being loud. If you’re going to travel all that way at least try and experience the culture and the language and the festivals and the markets and whatever else you can come across, right? And then they all look at me like I’m insane when I sit around reading my guidebook with dinner and then disappear into my room soon after.

I have met some nice people though, don’t get me wrong, all Germans strangely enough. It makes me feel bad that I don’t speak German and that they all have to speak English around me - it hardly seems fair, even though they say it means they can practice. Two of them are high school kids traveling for a year before they start university, the other is a former employee of the German Navy who figures this was his chance to travel on a Working Holiday Visa before he’s too old. There’s a really sweet French girl in my room too, but we seem to mostly keep different hours.

At this point I only have 1 full day left in Brisbane. My last excursion is a toss up between the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and the Mt Coot-tha Reserve. To see either one I have to take a bus out of town, so I just can’t seem to decide. This weekend I get to visit Australia Zoo, which was Steve Irwin’s pet project prior to his death. You’re allowed to interact with the animals there, everything from crocodiles to kangaroos. Depending on the species you can even hold them and feed them. I anticipate that I’ll act like a hyperactive child, but we’ll see. Keeping that in mind, I might pick the reserve over the sanctuary. Starting sometime next week the idea is to go WWOOFing, but I haven’t worked that out yet either. I’m certain that everything will fall into place.

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Photos

local wildlife
if you get close to these lizards they don't run away but they get really spazzy and shuffle in place

Comments

[Kait]

I'm reading this in class...
.. and I'm jealous! Anyways, do you happen to have a picture of this micheal jackson dedication? I'm curious.