Afternoon everyone. Quite a bit of activity on the old message board this week which as ever has kept us amused, and pi***d off the people sat next to us in the internet cafe's.

Hadn't realised there had been some 'oneupmanship' on the number of times people get mentions on the blogs - guess it's like end of season presentation days when you were a kid - hoping upon hoping that you'll get a trophy, or at least a good mention, but when it doesn't come it's heartbreaking (I can only imagine however....probably best to ask Nige how that feels).

Anyway, Nige thanks for your thoughts on the weekend's minute silence for the other lot, not sure it's the right forum for such militant views, but cheers anyway. Please stay silent!
Win, even though you have a seriously oversized bottom, you still are the best crack. Ashton and anyone with an Ulverston postal address, along with my Dad (who's son has managed to travel more than 7 countries in 3 continents since he last posted) however are the worst cracks!
Nidder - lets face facts, Golf is a daft game played by people in stupid clothes, lamenting about how great they are! However, you are different, although you wear stupid clothes, you do look like Tom Cruise and that's a good thing!
Quick mention to Jo Slippy, by the time you read this we'll have done the double over you lot, best get yourself a white shirt on the high road and follow the yids!
Finally, despite some of the community quite shamelessly requesting mentions, prizes for posts are awarded to Nic's family. Well done the inlaws and outlaws - posting regularly without a hint of narcissism has become quite refreshing!

Right, enough of the tom foolery......

Our next stop from Byron Bay was a change of plan. We had originally planned on getting ourselves to the rather attractive coastal town of Noosa beach, but with the weather not being the kindest, we opted to travel to Brisbane instead.

So after a relatively short journey (3 hours) from Byron, we checked ourselves into a natty little backpackers hostel in the Fortitude Valley (aka: 'the valley'), the location of Brisbane's best nightlife, and as we were to find out, a good number of our indigenous cousin's' high on methylated spirits. Nice.
Our plan however was only to stay in Brisbane for a couple of nights, visit the home of the crocodile hunter, and ship on out on up the coast - I guess the idea was that we'd prefer to spend a couple of wet days in a City rather than on a beach. So that's what we did.

The afternoon was a Sunday, and unlike just about anywhere in the UK these day's, Brisbane closes on Sundays. The place is like a ghost town, with not a lot to do. So without many options, we opted for the old favourite of a few beers (including having a fly ridden salad) and a walk around the City's Botanical gardens - it was the sight of many joggers, cyclists, roller skaters that shoved us into a slight depression over our current state of physical appearance, but what the hell, we might be a little overweight but what do you expect when you're having the time of your life!!

So after abusing the sad health freaks, the evening saw us visit Brisbane's South Bank 'lifestyle precinct', which looks like it's had an overhaul in the 10 years since I'd been there last, complete with modern shops, cafes, restaurants, a superscreen and even the streets beach which is, as you've probably guessed it, a beach in the middle of the city. The area consists of a man-made lagoon with white sand beaches, palm trees etc that's not only busy in the day, but due to being lit in the style of night-time bowl at your local Hollywood bowling alley, is also a major crowd puller after dark!
But not one's for sunbathing in the dark, and not being able to scan the nearby area of the pool in case little Bruce had offered up something lime green, or even brown for that matter, Belle and I opted for the nearby Cinema to watch American Gangster (I movie I have to recommend to the blog community).

The next day was an eagerly anticipated day. For today was a visit to Australia Zoo - the home of the late great Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter.
So we excitedly rose timely enough to catch the 9am train from 'Brunsy' to Beerwah, to then meet the bus which would take us to the Zoo for opening time. So after elbowing several young brats out of the way, we entered the Zoo in readiness for the first of several feeding events demonstrated by one of the 'zoo crew'. Crikey!!

There definitely can't be any other zoo like this place, it really as interactive as you can get. Amongst seeing loads of animals, we also managed to nervously stroke a young crocodile, annoy a koala, feed kangaroo's, and stare out a cheetah at close range whilst walking round the zoo. However, there was one thing that slightly disappointed; when I visited the zoo 'back in the day', good old Steve would (as Terry Irwin, his wife, still does today) perform a crocodile show in which all normal people sit back and watch a croc get fed dead chickens (and I, being slightly disturbed, would hope that one of them would accidentally slip and get eaten alive - now that would be a show!!). The show however 10 years ago literally was about 25 spectators stood round a big muddy pool with nothing but a bit of barbed wire between us, Steve, and these bloody big killers with teeth the size of a vauxhall vectra!
These days there's a stadium called the 'Crocoseum' which is the size of a 2nd division football team's ground around a pool complete with clear water and diving board (I jest about the diving board).
So years ago, Steve would be on the edge of the mud pool complete with Foghorn Leghorn in one hand and his wedding tackle in the other, and like the crowd, hadn't a clue when "agro" his most agitated crocodile would leap out. These days, you can see the croc coming - there's no chance in seeing another Irwin biting the dust! Rubbish!

But nonetheless, the zoo has grown into a great exhibition and one we thoroughly enjoyed. So with yet more presents for little Autumn Wren Abernethy (who I understand can now say "no".......a females' best word) it was time to get ourselves back to Brisbane to then discover that we were hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. Never mind, best have a few beers, and stare open mouthed at some caned Aborigine's!!!