Brisbane part 1

As I left Noosa I felt rejuvenated, rested and ready to hit the bright lights of Brisbane.

The girls and I had booked into a hostel named bunk which now, 6 weeks later I'm still living in! Bunk is a big building with a lot of, you guessed it, bunk beds! It's got a popular bar named Birdies and best of all its really cheap - only 100 dollars a week which is insane for a city in OZ.We were all allocated into different rooms but it didn't matter, I was put into a 10 bed dorm in an area of the building called the Jungle which had spray painted walls to match the theme.

My first experiences of Brisbane involved shopping, bogan bingo (which was when Claire won the air guitar competition) going to the cinema (hangover 2), comedy shows and sickness - yep that's right Scott had given me his illness and I ended up in bed unable to eat for over 4 days, it wasn't pleasant but at least I had Kandi and Robyn to take care of me.

As soon as I was better I decided it was time to start seeing some stuff so me, the girls and Scott who had made another appearance decided to go to the zoo.Brisbane is only 1.5hours away from Australia Zoo - formerly run and managed by Steve Irwin but now his family have taken over and kept his spirit alive.I was excited as we set off to catch the train, I still didn't feel great but it didn't matter because I was going to be seeing Koalas, crocs and tigers today! However my excitement gradually started to diminish when I began feeling really queasy whilst on the platform, when the train pulled up everyone got on but I stood on the platform, as the doors shut all the girls saw was me running up the stairs - what they didn't see was me projectile vomit all over a man's suit leg! I would feel bad but to be honest when I asked him to let me passed he ignored me so it served him right really didn't it?!

I caught the next train and managed to get to the zoo 45 mins after everyone else and in perfect timing for the elephant feeding! Ever since I saw them in India and then spent the day with them in the north of Thailand I have loved elephants, for such big animals they are so cute and interesting.I could just stand and watch them all day as they swing their tails and flap their ears I always picture the elephants from the Jungle book "hup two three four, keepitup two three four" - which is probably why me and the girls decided to hold hands and match around in a line singing the song, it made sense at the time but now looking back I could see why people looked at us strange, plus Scott doesa really impressive elephant noise which had heads turning anyway haha.

I saw so many cool things that day, like a tiger climbing a tree, a red panda passed out on a branch (I swear I heard him snoring) and I also got to get up close and personal to a Koala!! They are just like little baby's but with a grumpy old man's personality! They just stare at you as if to say "what? Alright I know I'm cute but there's no need to stare at me with that dum smile you know, Jesus I'm only eating a twig but whatever".They are great!

I also got to go into the kangaroo zone with a bag of food, it's like an enclosed park where you can wonder round and feed the kangaroos.I didn't realise that Kangaroos had a similar face to a donkey/ rabbit until I saw them up close and they have huge eyes you know?! It was funny because at one point one of the kangaroos had a little pop at a little boy who was running around screaming, the Kanga didn't hurt him or anything but Kandi saw it happen and wondered if that was its own way of asking for food?So happy as Larry Kandi wonders over and offers the angry Kangaroo some food, unsurprisingly it boxed her away - that's right Kandi entered into a fight with a Kangaroo and lost, it punched the lights out of her arm.I couldn't stop laughing! Luckily she had dodged and ducked herself away from injury and came out with a slightly bruised shoulder.

After staring at a 10m long snake with a head that was about the same size as mine trying to work out if it was real only to s*** myself when it moved, we decided to watch the big show.It's a show designed by Steve Irwin which highlights some of the more impressive creatures Australia has to be proud of such as parrots, vultures (huge as!) and then the big finale which was the beast - the crocodile! Right ok in my time I've seen a fare few animals in zoos or wild or whatever but I have never seen a large crocodile before so when they let him out and he came swimming into the arena I found myself unable to blink and my jaw went all loose.Have you ever seen a crocodile before? Like I mean a big ass crocodile, a mini T Rex type of crocodile?!In the flesh? They are quite literally the scariest animal ever, they are built to kill! They are massive and made of pure muscle, their jaws are designed to crush just about anything and they can swim really fast! AH! The croc that we saw was way bigger than me and as soon as I saw it the first thought I had was of my sister - not because she looks like a croc but because when I set off for Oz she couldn't stop stressing about how accident and unfortunate incident prone I am - she was worried about me going to a country with so many things that could kill me, I mean if anyone is going to accidently stand on a black widow it would probably me, right?!And so on the day of my flight I received a message from my sis explaining the key rules of Oz, such as always shake out your shoe before you put them on, don't get into the sea in the tropical north without a stinger suit on and most importantly of all NEVER never ever get into water that doesn't specifically say that it is croc free - they could be anywhere poised to kill.Is it bad that her advice only popped into my head when I had left the tropics?! Haha.
I loved the zoo, we all had a great time each of us fell in love with a different animal, and mine would have to be the wombat! The cutest animal ever I reckon and so funny as they went for their walk around the zoo.I also enjoyed the fact that the zoo had a personal touch, everywhere you went there were references to Steve, I didn't really appreciate him when he was alive but I have been severely educated at the zoo and I know see all the amazing work he did.I mean he educated tonnes of people, saved countless animals and most of all he had a passion which oozed out of his every pore - I'm a bit jealous of that really.

The zoo was just many great times I had with Robyn and Kandi, like when we went to the art museum and instead of staring at paintings me and Kandi made art of our own by standing in front of a projector and taking pictures of us posing. Shadow art, so easy yet so cool - a bit like potato stamps when you're a kid?!

Also one day we hopped a ride from the bunk staff up to the lookout point which was on a mountain outside of Brisbane and gave us a clear view for miles.Seeing the whole of Brisbane like that I realised how little the inner city is (the CBD as the ozzy's call it) it's literally loads of little houses then all of a sudden massive buildings jutting up like a stalagmite on a cave floor.After looking at the view we spent the afternoon getting down the mountain, stopping for a lovely little picnic in the forest which was where I made friends with a wild turkey who kept nicking my crisps, then after getting lost for a little while we made it to the bus stop and caught it all the way home.

Part one of Brisbane with Kandi and Robyn was lovely, I got to see some sights and have some fun and I made two good friends in the process.But before long they were due to leave and carry on their travels and I realised it was about time I found a job?!

To be continued …..