Our last day in Brisbane we woke with a slight break in the heat (it was still boiling) and decided to make as much of the town as we could. Brisbane is a strange place HUGE (Capital of Queensland) but rather centralised into districts. Of all the places we had been in Australia this had to be the ugliest. It retained none of the charm of the other cities and impressively seemed on par with Adelaide for lack of things to do (except the zoo). On further research this is even backed up by people who live there! Re: Brisbane - worth a visit? The short answer is no. Only if you were going to the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast would I consider it.

As tradition dictates we found a market, unfortunately this did not boast the delights of Melbourne or Sydney but had a wide variety of snacks and assortments of fruit. We stumbled upon a Falafel van with a huge amount of customers and decided on lunch here. Which was good, if not rather expensive for not having meat! With the market so close to town we had our usual wonder where I decided I needed to find a cheap barber. The cheapest barber I could find was a small Chinese man in an underground bus station who could speak no English but used a ticketing system vending machine. You buy your ticket and you receive a bowl cut. I swiftly opted out and went to the next cheapest. This happened to be what I can only believe was an Asian woman with an Adam's apple. Her large hands did a very good massage on my head and the cut wasn't bad. I wasn't sure on her/his gender or said swapping but it was a good experience. Laura also had her nails done, in another strange Chinese parlour where I'm not quite sure she knew what was going on. On the way home the largest thunderstorm hit since Sydney and continued on into the night, we managed to run to the supermarket for food and return without being washed away.