This morning we were up early to catch our bus to Brisbane and we had a couple of very grumpy drivers along the way! We changed buses in Brisbane and got on one heading for the airport. We'd just sat down when a familiar face headed up the aisle towards us…it was Anais, the French girl who stayed at Chris and Paul's house in Adelaide with us! Since we left her in Adelaide, she's visited Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and was on her way to Noosa, which is our next stop after Brisbane! It was good to catch up with her on the short bus trip to the airport and we exchanged numbers as we might meet up in Cairns.
Then we headed to Arrivals to meet Kelly off her 27 hour flight! It was great to see her again and we sat at a café in the airport for a while and caught up. It sounds like her experience of Beijing airport wasn't pleasant - lots of checkpoints, noone around to help - oh well, we'll find out for ourselves when we fly home from there in May!
Eventually we headed into the city on the very expensive Airtrain and found our hostel after a walk uphill in the hot sun. We were told that our room wasn't quite ready so we went next door for the hostel bar and enjoyed a cold XXXX which is brewed here in Brisbane. After we'd checked in, we headed straight upstairs to the fantastic rooftop pool - pretty flash for a hostel, and we got great views of the city from the pool. We spent a couple of hours there, trying to keep Kelly awake after her flight so that she'd get over the jet-lag faster!
At 5pm, we went to a welcome meeting which was also on the roof, where we got a free glass of goon punch! Again, welcome meetings don't normally happen at hostels, so it was a nice touch!

In the evening, we walked around the corner to a precinct called The Barracks, which is now filled with restaurants and cafes, to find somewhere to eat. We stopped at a place called FAB (Fish and Burgers!) and we all had a massive burger each - delicious! By this point, Kelly was exhausted so we called it a night after that and went back to the hostel. Kelly went straight to bed and we spent some time uploading our next batch of photos!