Brisvegas (Brisbane)

Hi guys,

It's been a while but I am finally home which means that I can finish writing the blogs for the remaining places I visited. I have also edited my previous posts to include the pictures so take a look at them if you wish.

So...Brisbane. It seems like forever ago that we went to Brisbane but hopefully I will still be able to remember what we did (in reality it's been just over a week!). We spent four days in Brisbane, Queenslands capital, in total and it was such a lovely city, much quieter than Sydney which is nice but still with a lot to offer (perhaps less touristy things to do). It was nice to spend a few days in a city after spending time in coastal towns - there is a lot of contrast on the east coast.

On our first day we generally just wandered around, getting a feel for the city. As I said, there isn't a massive amount of typical touristy things to do (as there is in Sydney - e.g. with the bridge, opera house and beaches) but we managed to entertain ourselves. I was speaking to one guy and he said that Brisbane has changed a lot in a short time - definately an up and coming city. As Brisbane is a river city rather than a coastal city, the council decided to build it's own beach/sea (the sea is just a swimming pool) in the South Bank region of Brisbane. It's really nice there, lots of greenery, fountains, chinese gardens and a London eye type thing. Here are some pics:

View whilst crossing the bridge to South Bank



Sam in the Chinese Gardens

Walking down the river front at South Bank

On our second day in Brisbane we took a trip to the infamous Australia Zoo - home of Steve Irwin, Crocodile hunter! It was actually wicked but kind of weird - definately a shrine to Steve Irwin. It was also strange because a lot of the attractions were basically named after his daughter Bindi - she has her own DVD range, own dolls, clothing range etc - whereas his son has nothing! Some favouratism there I think. We saw the famous show which included quick demonstrations of the elephants, reptiles, birds (mainly parrots which were flying around the Crocoseum like crazy!) and finally the crocodiles, where the keeper taunts a crocodile until in nearly bites. It was really fun, much better than Woburn shows! We got to hug possums, stroke koalas and kangaroos - very hands on here! Here are a few piccies:

Enjoying the show

Croc attack

Riding the shuttle bus



Stroking a koala

Chatting to a roo

Our third and fourth days involved more sight seeing and wandering around. We took the river cat up the river, giving us some nice views over the city, went to some markets and suitcase rummages, had a few ice-creams and had a night out. We also took a bus to Mount Coot-tha lookout to get some fantastic views of the entire city. We later stopped off at the Botanical Gardens - it seems that I visit a botanical garden wherever I go nowadays...

View from the river-cat

Group shot at New Farm Park

View from the river-cat

Night out



View from Mount Coot-tha

Group shot at Mount Coot-tha

The botanical gardens

So I had an awesome time in Brisbane and definately plan on going back at some point during my stay in Oz. I should also mention that our room-mates in the hostel were really nice - they're from Switzerland and Finland - very friendly and chatty! The beds on the other hand were very squeaky and wobbly - they did not feel safe! Weather was also pretty good for the entire time but did get a bit cloudy. Sorry this turned out to be such a long post.