Blogs from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 13

One of the (many) great things about an extended stay is not having to RUN-AROUND-AND-JAM-PACK-EVERY-MOMENT-WITH-EXTREME-EXPERIENCES!!!!!!!!!!. Just writing that sentence tired me out. My first week has been low-key and has allowed me to gradually adapt to my new surroundings. The immediate neighbourhood has kept the camera clicking. img=https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1513828_10152837131490956_3248932714926070570_n.jpg?oh=fa08f00914d2c2b1fd664d1d6c3f27c1&oe=54F98F21 These poinciana trees are everywhere and definitely make up for having missed the jacarandas (I did see them last trip). There are many flowering shrubs and trees the names of which I have yet to learn. I also enjoy, when traveling, capturing pics of signs that strike my fancy. img=https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10850103_101528426... read more

So while I’d been asleep Snow White had kissed all of her dwarves off to work and they proceeded to make their way into my head and started mining my skull. The hangover was unbearable, the post-steak events of last night had involved meeting some new roommates and a bottle of Southern Comfort. There was a travelling pair of friends from Manchester, they’d been to Sydney and were heading up north to spend 3 months in Yeppoon. Why anyone would spend more than a week there is beyond me, but these guys had hated everywhere they’d been to so far. They hated Sydney and they looked disgusted at the hostel, with the guy asking if he had to take the sheets off the bed when they checked out. Yes, of course you do. It’s a hostel ... read more

Writing this from Brisbane; be warned it is a mammoth entry! Found a great stonegrill restaurant in Airlie Beach so had dinner there before getting the bus at midnight to Rockhampton. Only issue was that the bus was an hour late leaving so I missed my connecting bus to Biloela and ended up hiring a car with a fellow passenger. Two hours later we were in Biloela and Alan from the ranch collected me - very twinkly blue eyes and some interesting driving! Settled in to the accommodation (log cabins in the forest) and met my companion for the night......a lizard. Better than a spider. Goat muster on horseback in the afternoon, when we rounded up 150 odd goats. Horses were a mixture of Australian saddle horses and wild brumbies; I rode "big Red", not actually ... read more

Okay so my first bad morning in Brisbane, I got a much better sleep than last night but despite that I still woke up in a bit of a low. I pulled myself out of bed and opted for a cold shower to try and blast some life into me. I wandered out into the Wednesday morning air of the hostel, it was laced with a humidity that was just too heavy to be comfortable and as if to match I had a growing sense of homesickness housed somewhere inside me. My head swirled with all sorts of anxieties, I was away from my parents and I hadn’t made as many friends in the hostel as I’d planned. On top of that, the enormity of the cost of travelling had finally dawned on me and who ... read more

So after saying our goodbye’s to mum and dad at Rockhampton Airport Katie and I finally left for Brisbane, although not before I caved in and bought another science magazine. Security was laid back and keen to get home, as was the fashion in Central Queensland, which made it easy to breeze through and onto the small white plane on the tarmac which waited eagerly to take me away from the family that I had grown up with for the past 18 years. It was a sad moment yet I couldn’t help but feel butterflies in my stomach when I thought about what was waiting for me. Finally I’d be out of that tiny, half-witted, redneck town that my parents had chosen to call home and off into the world, starting with a city that I ... read more