Brisbane

  Brisbane, Australia
Saturday, March 10, 2007

The corner of Ocean Avenue and Surfers Paradise boulevard, Surfer Paradise, Queensland, Australia. This was the address of our hostel with pool seconds from the huge beach in Surfers.
Brisbane may have many attractions, but our hostel in the city was not one of them, so we caught the very cheap but really handy train, with air con, down to Surfers.
The hostelers in surfers surf during the day, then drink cheap wine that comes in $6 4 litre boxes, before heading out on the hostel organised pub crawls.
Didn't fancy any of that business. We joined them in a few drinking games then chatted with the remaining older backpackers before getting an early night.
Australia Zoo is just north of Brisbane, so we stayed at a nearby Motel in Beerwah, then went to see the Steve Irwin memorial theme park.
At one point in the crocoseum show, a man in a Steve Irwin suit comes running out to shouts of Crikey from the crowd and staff. Bizarre.
Not too much different from the Sydney Zoo but on a much bigger scale and more americanised over enthusiastic staff.
It was a good full day though, from 9 till 3 and pretty good value.
The lady at the motel who incidentley has a 6 foot 8 inch son living in England, gave us a lift to the station in the morning.
We hooked up to a free wireless connection outside the Virgin VIP lounge at the airport for a few hours, checking email and stuff.
Lots of travellers told us about a few things to do on the east coast north of Brisbane, mostly involving sand and sea, so we decided to skip all of that as we knew there would be plenty of sea and sand to come in Thailand. Another cheapo Virgin blue plane took us on a bumpy ride to cairns.