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Published: March 12th 2007
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Brisbane
We left Australia Zoo on a bus bound for Brisbane, and were met at the transit centre by Brendan, a friend Saz had made in August 2005 during her America travels. He had kindly offered to put us up for a while, and so we headed back to his place in the nearby suburb of Taringa to eat pizza and collapse!
Entertaining ourselves while Brendan worked, we caught a train back into Brisbane and took the city tour recommended in our Lonely Planet guidebook. We started at the City Hall for a view from the clocktower, and saw that although it may have been the tallest building it certainly isn't anymore by a long shot! Taking in other (pretty boring) buildings we wandered through the botanical gardens to have our picnic, and then crossed over one of many bridges to South Bank to have a paddle in the artificial 'Streets Beach' lagoon. Stopping for a sweet-stop at an old fashioned sweet-shop, we browsed the craft market there before heading back for tea and films.
Saturday was a lazy day made for making various decisions. For those not in the know, before we left England we got ourselves
Australian Working Visas so that if we wanted to work while over here we could. Previous thinking and talking to people had led us to believe that Brisbane would be our best bet for a place to work, as it is nice and relaxed, the place is growing so there should be plenty of opportunities, whilst it is not as monstrous as Sydney and therefore not as expensive to live in! Well, we popped out to visit a backpacker recruitment desk, and were basically told that the only work we would likely be able to get on a full-time basis would be in telesales. The other option would be to split up and for Dave to work on a farm somewhere and Saz to try and find bar-work out in the sticks! With the thought that we don't desperately need the money, and we've got the rest of our lives to work, it wasn't too difficult to come to the conclusion that maybe we should just leave working until we get back home!
With this in mind, that afternoon we decided on what else we wanted to do whilst in Australia, and planned the dates for the remainder of our
flights. Quite a mentally exhausting afternoon! So, needing to fuel our brains, we dashed off to the nearest supermarket and unfortunately went the wrong way, meaning that it closed just as we got there... Damn!
That night we went to the 'Storey Hotel' to see Brendan in action at his Saturday bar job and, very gratefully, to benefit from a known bartender! After various cheap drinks and yet-to-be-named cocktails, Brendan's housemates Chris and Mandy joined us and we ventured out to The Valley and into the 'Fringe Bar'. Brendo met us there after work at around 2am for a couple more drinks, and after a requisite stop off at McDonalds we got home to watch some comedy tv!
Previous late night = big morning lie in. Or afternoon lie-in, as Dave eventually woke Saz up at 1.30pm! Brendan drove us around Brisbane pointing out some views during the day. We spent the early evening on a ferry cruise up and down the river to take in Brisbane by night. Quite a different city when everything is all lit up at night; marvellous use of a return ticket on a public transport ferry we thought! We got back around
9pm to be fed and watered, and to a dangerous precedent being set that may cost Saz her place here in the real world... Brendan put on the first disc of his 15 disc or so 'Lost' tv series collection, and off started a little 'Lost' marathon. Some people have been known to turn into tv zombies at the sight of just one episode, with the risk increasing for every additional episode. Will Saz's brain be 'lost' for all time? We'll keep you posted!
Monday we went back into town to make use of the free 'Make Your Own Boomerang' vouchers we got whilst in Agnes Waters. After being handed our shaped boomerangs, we spent so long designing our own aboriginal-style images and then painting them that we had to rush the end so the guy could close up the shop! Meant they have ended up looking fantastic though! Dave cooked the house a roast dinner, and everyone took their chances at being turned into zombies again (that means we watched more 'Lost'.)
Tuesday we hired a car and decided to take a look at the areas surrouding Brisbane. First off we took a scenic drive around Mount Coot-tha, and stopped off to have a look-out over the city. We ventured further into Brisbane Forest Park to look at other viewpoints, having a nice cuppa and then a picnic lunch at Jolly's Point. On to the park's wildlife reserve where we eventually got to see a platypus (see video), along with snakes, spiders, birds, and the indangered species 'quoll'. We also identifed the creature seen in Eungella when platypus watching as in fact a water rat... how good are we! Skirting a couple of lakes, Dave drove past copius amounts of termite mounds on the way to the coast while Saz slept off a headache. Over the bridge to Bribie Island, another huge sand island similar to Fraser Island, we discovered just how built up and unFraser-like it was! Back to the mainland, we drove down to Redcliffe and Scarborough to discover that there wasn't really much there, and that we might as well go home 😊 That night we went back to Mt Coot-tha for a night-view with the whole house in tow (fearing for our lives with Chris's driving!) which was far nicer than the cloudy day-view we got. And we watched some 'Lost'...
We said our farewells to Brendo and Chris when they left for work the next morning, and caught a train into town to officially change our flight dates for Asia and the journey back home. On the way back to the station we picked up our boomerangs that the shop-guy had kindly varnished for us, and showed them off to Mandy over lunch! Saying our final goodbye, we hoisted our bags to our shoulders to make the steep climb back to the train station for our trip to Ormeau, where our future lay in the hands of Kim, an ex-colleague of Dave's from his days at Guy's Hospital...
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Andy
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Brisvegas
So you like my little town of Brissy. Lived in Newfarm before I came to sunny manc. Tried to avoid mount Cootha though, too many pre-pubescents romantacising over the view getting all cosy. Not my scene! Do your boomerangs fly?