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Published: August 7th 2007
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The O'Malleys Gang
Believe It Or Not Ronan and The Girl In The Middle Are The Only Two From Ireland We were up bright and early and not feeling all that great (Self inflicted) to catch our flight from Cairns to Brisbane. We arrived safely after a short flight. After arriving in the airport we noticed that a lot of the guys in the airport were about 5 foot ten in height and about 5 foot ten across the shoulders. We later learned that this was not some genetic disorder amongst Brisbane men, but that they were all part of the North Queensland Cowboys team who were in town to play the Brisbane Broncos in the very average sport that is Rugby league. After giving a few statements to the waiting press about how we saw the game going we caught the train into town to our hostel.
Brisbane is a big place with almost 2 million people so we were relieved to find we were staying just outside the city centre. After a bite to eat and a beer we took an early night to catch up on some sleep.
Fresh from the cultural vacuum that is Cairns (Lots of social attractions however) we were eager to see some sights in Brisbane. First stop was the Queensland Museum
which was really interesting and where we spent most of our first day. After that we headed back towards the city centre to have a wander around. We took in the City Hall, St Michaels church and the main shopping street - Queen Street. After that we headed to the main War Memorial in the city - ANZAC Square.
As we were walking up the road to the hostel, who should we bump into but Frank (Of Bangkok and Sligo fame) walking towards us. Turns out (Scarily) he was staying in the dorm next to ours in the hostel (Very small world when you’re Irish). We arranged to catch up with him for the obligatory pint.
Nessa, Ciarans next-door neighbour from home is studying in Brisbane and had graciously offered to cook us our first home cooked meal in a long time. She did fail to mention that she lived at the top of two of the biggest hills we had seen in any city. After the "climb" to her lovely apartment we had a delicious dinner and caught up on all the Sligo gossip. We headed home feeling nourished for the first time in quite a while.
The next day we visited the Castlemaine Brewery - Home of the famous Castlemaine XXXX beer. The tour was really cheesy and funny and involved samples of 5 of the beers brewed there (Including an Australian Stout). The brewery is right beside the Suncorp Stadium, where the aforementioned Rugby league game was happening so there were lots of people milling around when we finished the tour. We sensibly took an early night that night in preparation for the big day - Paddys Day of course. So after ironing the flag we hit the hay.
We were up early and after a beer with in the hostel (Our hostel has it's own Irish bar believe it or not called the Fiddlers Elbow). Disappointingly they were serving Guinness in JUGS!!! Disgusted we decided to move on. From there we headed flag in tow to Tin Billys down the road and from there onto Irish Murphys. We were accompanied by a Scottish lad, Mark a newbie to Paddys days celebrations but a fast learner. Irish Murphys was in full swing when we got there around 2pm and some of the parade seemed to have lost there way as there were three
bagpipe players marching up and down the middle of the pub. Just to add some Irish authenticity to the day we watched from the pub balcony as a bunch of Dublin lads fought a brawl with a bunch of lads from Armagh.
Things calmed down after that and we were joined by Nessa for a few drinks although she was on the pots (A bizarrely small glass Australians drink from). Clearly Nessa is becoming a bonafide Australian. After Irish Murphys we headed to O' Malleys where they had big screens laid on for the rugby match.
Strangely enough most of the people dressed as leprechauns and decked out in shamrocks were not Irish at all. Still they were all great fun (Although Ciarans flag did go AWOL - Any information relating to the whereabouts of Ciarans missing flag should be forwarded to the Brisbane Police HQ on Roma street).
We watched the rugby with a fantastic atmosphere in the pub and although the result wasn't enough we enjoyed the rest of the night. After a pit stop at Hungry Jacks (Burger King Oz) we made our way back to the the hostel and bed after a long
and fantastic Paddys day.
We were up the next day, (Physically anyway) and on the prowl for an Irish breakfast. Unfortunately breakfast was well over by the time we made it into town so we settled for dinner in O' Malleys. We watched amazed as the Irish Cricket team (Yep - Apparently we have a team) bet Pakistan. We watched the other rugby games from the previous night before organising the next few weeks of the trip in a travel agent.
Our travel agent at Peter Pans was called Brendan "Bucko" Buckley and couldn’t stop laughing at the train of hungover Irish people he had seen that day. We allowed him free reign to plan the next part of our trip as neither of us were in the mood for thinking and booked our trip north of Queensland. After that we headed home for an early night.
The next day we caught the train and then shuttle bus to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. The zoo is fantastic and keeps up the cheesy theme from the documentary's with a hilariously cheesy but highly entertaining crocodile show in the Crocoseum (A huge stadium purpose built for the show).
We got up close with Koalas who much like Ronan sleep about 23 hours a day. We also visited the huge kangaroo area where you can pet the kangaroos and saw a bewildering array of animals from all over the world (See Videos). After a great day at the zoo we headed back to the city and met Frank for a pint in the hostel.
Next Stop Noosa...
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