After leaving Palm Beach early this morning, today has been spent back in Brisbane as we had a few items on the agenda before heading north tomorrow.

Our first activity of the day was down in Queen Street Mall - the main pedestrian shopping area - where David was having his head shaved for charity, after raising just over $300 for the Leukaemia Foundation. When we arrived there was a big stage with four chairs on it for the willing participants and an announcer was booming out over the speaker system to let everyone know what was going on. By this stage, David was looking pretty anxious at losing six months worth of growth and it wasn't helped by the fact that he was in the first group to go up and the other people all looked like they were just going for their fortnightly trim! After half an hour the hair was gone (and what a lot of hair it was too!!) and we headed off in search of liquid replenishment, whilst trying to stay in the shade as much as possible so the newly exposed head didn't start to melt.

After some brekkie and a leisurely day of strolling around the shops we headed to Suncorp Stadium to watch the rugby league match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys. The Broncos won the championship last year and we thought it would be a good chance for the Robb's to appreciate the finer qualities of a good game of league, instead of the union that they follow so passionately.

When we arrived at the stadium we made our way to our seats and began to watch the pre-match entertainment, which consisted of the "Bronco Babes" cheerleading squad and a woman riding round the pitch on a white horse (or Bronco as they claimed it was). It was clear to see how Americanised the sport has become as the Bronco's came running out of the changing room between two lines of the cheerleaders with fireworks exploding behind them. While the game was being played the "Babes" would sporadically walk around the pitch to perform a little routine before hurrying back to their seats again, and every time the Bronco's scored a try the woman on the horse went off up the side of the pitch again!

It was all very strange, but it proved much more entertaining than the first sixty minutes of rugby. The last twenty minutes were much better as both teams suddenly seemed to wake up but even during this period, we couldn't help but notice how little atmosphere there was in the stadium. It was as if everyone had gone to the match to catch up with friends and were having hundreds of conversations with each other and there just happened to be a game being played on the pitch below them! It was definitely not what we had expected from the record attendance and a far cry from the last rugby match we had seen live in Fiji!

Tomorrow we are heading up towards Bundaberg to explore the area and experience some more close encounters with the animal kingdom