Day 119 Thursday 7th January 2010

Johno says

Our greyhound transfer steered us into Brisbane within 2 hours of leaving Surfers Paradise and our hostel was only 600 metres from the coach station but it was a long 600 metres in the Queensland heat. The hostel was another good quality YHA and it was more like a hotel with a rooftop swimming pool and good newly built facilities on site. It appears that the YHA's are definitely the way forward in Oz from what we have seen so far. Once we had arrived we browsed through some of the tours on offer including a tour of the XXXX brewery which unfortunately is not accessible for when I wanted to go!! Then we went to explore Brisbane City Centre walking through the main streets and over the bridge to the area known as the Southbank with the locals cooking on the bbq's provided and families playing in the park, the Brisbane Open tennis was also showing on a big screen so we sat down to watch that for a bit. Brisbane was definitely appearing to be quite an up and coming place with quite a bit of development and construction around. It was all too much for one day so I decided to head back to the hostel to take advantage of the rooftop pool that we had eyed up when we arrived. The evening was spent chilling out with the scheduled movie night in the hostel and an early night for a no doubt busy day of exploration tomorrow.

Day 120 Friday 8th January 2010

Stacey says

Today I went for a stroll around the main town, around the shops, Brisbane is not a very touristy place, but I thought it was a nice city nonetheless. There is a fair bit of construction going on, it's developing all the time it seems. Everyone seems to be running and cycling everywhere, even in the afternoon heat! After having walked enough, I decided to make my way to Mt Coot-tha lookout point. I needed to take a bus, which was about 20 minutes ride up the mountain. It was a clear sunny day, so the views were brilliant, it was a good view of Brisbane city, with all the tall buildings in the centre and the river going through it. It seemed like a popular spot up here with families up there having picnics or sitting in the restaurants. Making it back to the hostel for 4pm, Steve and I went to Coles, and picked out our dinner, which was to be Kangaroo steak baguettes with salad. We thought it tasted alright, chewy, but I think we overcooked it a little! Running slightly late, we had 5 minutes to get ready, to head out to meet Dan, a guy I worked with in London. We sat out in the plaza in the main mall, and had some beers, then later heading to a nice cheap student bar for some more beers and dancing. There was a guy that thought Steve was Steve Curry, an actor in Oz who texted all his mates to say he'd met him. Then some crazy Dutch guy kept singing West Ham songs to Steve throughout the night… making it home for bed at 3am!