Brisbane

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Day 48: Concrete Jungle

After not much sleep, with my drunken room mates coming and going throughout the night, I crawled out of bed early to check out and get to the bus stop. I was quietly quite relieved when it started to cloud over, with sunny skies such a rarity on the East coast of Australia at the moment, I think I'd have had a problem walking away from the beach if it had turned out to be a nice day.

On the minibus, it only took two hours to get to Brisbane, and we pulled into the transit centre at lunchtime. A short walk later and I arrived at my new hostel, in contrast to my last accomodation, I had booked into a quiet old colonial house, with small dorms, a swimming pool out the back and a predominantly German clientele.

Having asked the girl on reception what she thought would be the best way to spend my first afternoon in Brisbane, I soon worked out that I wouldn't be in for a crazy time in the city, when after much thought, she asked me if I liked Christmas trees and pointed me in the direction of the city's latest decorative effort. I headed into town, and did indeed stop at the aforementioned tree, which although quite large and very well decorated, was surely not one of Brisbane's highlights!? The main street running through the centre of the CBD was a shopping haven, packed with clothes shops and a couple of department stores and large malls. I did a bit of window shopping before finding a clothes shop selling floaty hippy dresses. I must have still been in Byron Bay mode, because I shortly found myself looking at a variety of long floral dresses. I had only meant to try on one, but the shop assistant kept bringing more and saying stuff like: 'it doesn't matter if you don't buy anything....it's all about having fun'. Well, her slightly unusual sales techniques certainly worked on me, and I am now the proud owner of a completely impractical long floaty dress, which although very nice, is probably not so good for hiking/sunbathing/going out/backpacking/doing anything. At least I only bought one, and still have no wrap-around-trousers.

Escaping the central shopping area, I crossed the main river to the south of the city, and walked towards the 'cultural centre' of Brisbane, a complex of similarly designed buildings made of large concrete blocks. Difficult to differentiate from each other, the buildings didn't look too inviting, independently housing the theatre, art gallery, library, and museum. I walked straight on past and along the riverside where I reached 'Brisbane Beach', a bizarre mock beach situated close to the river. With imported sand, palm trees, chlorinated water and far too many children, it was quite a bizarre finding in the middle of the grey concrete city. Despite it being rather sunny, and despite the notable absence of boys with surfboards, the whole beach set up thing was all a bit wierd, and with too many children around anyway, I decided to give it a miss. Walking on further I reached the night market which was just setting up for the evening, although some of the stalls were a bit rubbish, in amongst these there were some nice clothes and jewellery for sale. Finding myself again drawn towards floaty dresses, I moved swiftly on and continued alongside the river, crossing at the next pedestrian bridge. On my way back to the hostel, I stocked up on food, and then packed a small bag of things to take to Fraser Island, before getting an early night ready for a long journey and (hopefully) an exciting weekend.


Day 49: Beaches, roving sand dunes and ancient shipwrecks

It was another early start as I arrived back at the transit centre at quarter to seven and started looking for the four-wheel drive I had arranged to join bound for Fraser Island. After meeting Julia, a german girl, similarly lost but meant to be on the same trip, we eventually found the right car and loaded up our stuff, sharing the packed vehicle with one italian and three french guys, and a japanese couple.

Our car arrived at Rainbow Beach late morning, and after buying some lunch and food to cook for dinner, and watching a few (again quite good) surfers catching waves, we drove up the road to Tin Can Bay and caught the ferry across to Fraser Island. The crossing only took ten minutes, and within no time at all, we were driving along seventy-five mile beach (at seventy-five miles per hour), dodging the incoming tide.

Our first stop was at the campsite which had been adequately fenced off to prevent Dingos from entering tents. We were given a ten second airline stewardess' introduction to the facilities, before Wes, our guide and driver, sprinted off into the distance with a surfboard under his arm. With an hour to explore, most of us followed suit and headed for the beach, reached by walking through bush and then swimming across a waterhole. Although the currents were pretty strong (even the surfers gave up pretty quickly), paddling in the warm water was lovely, and after a pleasant half-an-hour there, we headed back to the car and were driven up the beach to go for a walk, first through forest and then across a giant migrating sand dune. Called a sand blow, the one kilometre stretch of desert had been making its way slowly across the island for years, burying all trees and other foliage in its path. After a very hot walk, trudging our way across the sand, we reached Lake Wabby at the end of the dune, a green freshwater lake home to lots of fish and turtles (but no crocodiles). There was time for a short swim in the lake before heading back along another forest path, encountering a wide variety of foliage and creepy crawlies as we went.

Our next stop further on up the beach was the huge Maheno shipwreck. Grounded on Fraser Island in 1935, it's been there rusting and falling apart ever since, and now serves as a bit of a tourist attraction for visitors to the island. We stopped there for a little while, but with the crowds growing as further car loads of tourists arrived, and with the sun now setting, we soon headed back along the beach to our campsite, where after sorting out tents and bedding, it was definitely dinner time. Luckily Julia and I had managed to convince Federico (the Italian guy) to cook us both pasta (as only an Italian can), which he quite happily did whilst we got going on the wine, and we had a lovely evening, eating, drinking and being merry around a campfire.


Day 50: Rainforest walks and wildlife encounters

Woken up early by bright sunlight and birds outside the tent, we packed up and left the camp at eight, driving to the island's bakery for breakfast. After some food and much-needed coffee, it was only a short drive along dirt tracks, before we stopped for a stroll through the rainforest. Although not the longest walk and despite having a bit of a red wine hangover, it was still very pleasant, with dense foliage all around, a lovely stream running over white and turquoise sand, and a few interesting specimens of wildlife including brightly coloured beetles, deafening cicadas, eels and a mantis (with head in tact).

Next on the itinery was Lake McKenzie, a picturesque inland freshwater lake, where we stopped to swim and sunbathe on the white sandy beach. We had lunch at the picnic site there, and as well as a giant goanna, we managed to find a few of the island's famous mangy dingos (well actually, they found us).

Rather tired, but sad to be leaving so soon, we returned to the beach to board the boat back to the mainland. Whilst waiting for the barge to take us back to to Tin Can Bay, we spotted a few dolphins swimming in the sea not too far from the shore, which was quite nice. The rest of the journey back was fairly uneventful with a few brief stops before arriving back in Brisbane in the evening. From the transit centre I walked back up to the hostel, but having retrieved my luggage from their storage, I was a bit annoyed that they couldn't then find a bed for me, despite me having booked one. Luckily a hostel round the corner had a spare dorm bed, and although it didn't have a swimming pool, it turned out to be a nice place, and with lots of friendly people around, I booked to spend a few nights there instead.


Day 51: A bit bored in Brisbane

I didn't really do too much today. After another amble around Brisbane centre looking and not really finding something interesting to do, I head down to the art gallery. Although a concrete monstrosity on the outside, it was actually much nicer on the inside, with some interesting paintings and installations. The museum nextdoor didn't have such great reviews so I gave that a miss. Amazingly, despite being in the middle of a drought with reservoirs only 16% full, newly instated level six water restrictions (the highest level) and hostel guests limited to two minute showers, it clouded over and rained in the afternoon, making the option of relaxing by the local outdoor pool slightly less appealing. Unable to find much else to do, I headed back to the hostel and mingled with some of the other people staying there over a few drinks until bedtime.


Day 52: Steve Irwin's Legacy

It didn't rain in Brisbane today, or so I'm told, although I wouldn't know because I went further up the coast to Beerwah, where it rained. An hour and a half from the city by train, I arrived in Beerwah at half-past nine and then had a short bus ride to Australia Zoo, made famous by the late Steve Irwin. Forgetting that it was Christmas and therefore school holidays, I joined a whole load of visitors, most of them with screaming children, walking round the zoo admiring the wide variety of animals and reptiles there. The live display of birds and snakes, and crocodiles being fed in the 'Crocoseum' was entertaining, but all a bit cheesy and americanised (and aimed at five-year olds). Nevertheless, it was an alright day out, and I did get to encounter a few new animals including wombats (very fluffy and cute, I might have to get one to keep my pet koala company) and Tasmanian devils. There were of course tributes to Steve Irwin everywhere, along with the encouraged excessive use of his better known phrases (namely 'Crikey' and 'Crocs rule') by children across the zoo...so it didn't really turn out to be such a quiet day out of the city!

I got back to sunny (cloudy) Brisbane at about 5pm and after a quick shower, headed out to meet Julia (who I'd met on the Fraser Island trip), for some Nachos and a couple of bottles of Hunter Valley Riesling. We had a very pleasant evening at one of the streetside bars in the pedestrianised part of the city centre, with the cloudy weather keeping the warm temperatures well into the night, we sat at a table outside until the bar closed at midnight.


Day 53: Making plans

I had wanted to go for a walk in one of the National Parks, but this proved impossible to arrange without either hiring a car or joining a tour, and not really wanting to take either of these options, I had some time to kill in Brisbane. With a pending flight to Auckland the next day, I thought it was probably about time I started to organise my trip around New Zealand, and so spent much of the day with a guide book, roughly planning some kind of route and activities, and booking a few hostels to cover the busy period around Christmas. It wasn't the most exciting of days, but I did managed to intersperse my visits to internet cafes with trips round the shops buying some souvenir Havaianas and some nice food to use up my last few Aussie dollars. At least I now have a rough idea now of what I'm going to be doing when I finally reach pastures new! Bring on New Zealand!

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