Hello!

We arrived in Brisbane on Friday 16th & made our way to the Brisbane City YHA, otherwise known as the "The Building Site". The hostel is currently undergoing major reconstruction, but we luckily managed to get a new room, which was very nice, & even had air-con - Yipeeeeee! We dumped our bags and set off into the city. Brisbane soon won us over with it's brilliant climate and laid back atmosphere, it's clear to see why it's currently the fastest growing city in Australia.

Whilst in Brisbane we spent an afternoon walking aroung the sub-tropical Botanic Gardens, Queensland's oldest heritage park, est in 1855. We strolled among the old trees and along the riverside.

We spent a day on Lee's very own creation - Lee's walking tour of Brisbane. Our first stop was Brisbane Arcade, built in 1923, this is typical of a European 18th century shopping centre, and is now filled with Brisbane's top fashion designers. Our next stop was Anzac Square, where we saw the war memorial which was dedicated on 11th November 1930. We then walked to St Stephen's Cathederal, this is a modernised 19th century neo-gothic cathederal - or in our words, a very large cathederal with beautiful stained glass windows. Very impressive. After a rather long walk we eventually found ourselves at St John's Anglican Cathederal. Unfortunately this was undergoing repairs so we couldn't go in. We swiftly moved on to our final stop, the Old Windmill. Constucted by convicts in 1828, this is the oldest surviving building in Queensland - and it looks it!

The day following our city tour we decided to get some well deserved rest at Streets Beach - this is the man-made lagoon with imported beach in the heart of the city. This is a great place to spend a relaxing day and catch a few rays.

We also spent an afternoon cruising up and down The Brisbane River, on the city cats. From the river we got to see lots city sights and stopped off at New Farm Park for a picnic. From here we headed back down the river towards the city, just in time to see the sun setting over Goodwill Bridge. This was a great afternoon, and a good way to get around Brisbane.

Next up was the Castlemain XXXX Brewery Tour. We were given a guided tour of the factory, whilst being told about the history of the company as well as the process of making beer. We were then taken to the brewery's very own bar, where we received large amounts of complimentary XXXX beer, ales and stout (yuk). After all the free beer we seemed to have forgotten all the facts that we'd been told on our tour, except for the fact that the brewery has 32 tanks and 1 tank alone holds so much beer that if you drank a 6 pack a day it would take 240 years to empty the tank.

Our last day in Brisbane was spent at Roma Street Parklands. This is the largest tropical inner-city garden in the world and has picturesque waterfalls and flower gardens.

Brisbane is a great city and we had a fantastic 10 days there.

Love Lee and Emma

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