On into Queensland and roll on Brisbane! Here we stayed at Tin Billy's, only a short walk to the river, business district, gardens, well pretty much everything. First impressions were that Brisbane is a really lovely place, really warm, clean, well organised and that impression certainly lasted as we walked around and explored a bit. The morning was spent waling around the small but interesting 'Brsisbane Museum, they had a great exhibition on fashion through the last 150 years which kept us amused for a while. We then went up the top of the clock tower, it is a shame that the very few high rises that Brisbane has surround the tower so the views are pretty limited but we did have a nice view of the church that we later visited and sat taking in the lovely building, ceilings and windows, it could have been very reflective if it hadn't been for the guy tuning the humongous organ on the alter, what a noise that is!

A quick walk later over the River Brisbane we arrived at the culture centre and the Queensland Museum, we have decided that we know very little about the Aboriginal culture and decided to make a beeline for that exhibit, it was quite an interactive museum as many seem to be and we found the exhibits really interesting! After an amble around the south bank area and manmade lagoon and beach area we walked back over the bridge and after a rather un-scenic detour on the way to the gardens (yes, we got lost under the bridges) it was about time to meet up with Tess and Nigel (a lovely couple we met on our NZ Connections trip) for a walk around the city and dinner. We went on a quick ride along the river and then toured through the beautiful botanical gardens before going for dinner at Jojo's which was really cool, the evening was capped off with some lovely ice cream- thanks for a great evening guys!

The following day we visited Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for a lot of Koala photo opportunities! There are around 130 Koala's there and they range from the very young living with their mothers, onto kindergarten, into the bachelor pad through to the retirement areas! They are such lovely animals and we got the opportunity to hold one which was the cutest thing ever. Joey took to it really well and looked very much at home, I however, with my general being terrified of every animal on the planet silliness, looked very uncomfortable to begin with however when I got over that it was really lovely and the photos came out well! There were also some Kangaroos that you could feed and lots of Birds and scary creepy crawlies (Joey and I didn't bother playing those a visit on this occasion)!