We reluctantly bid farewell to Byron Bay (seriously cool beach town full of alternative lifestyles and great surf) we headed North once more crossing into Queensland. We managed to avoid most of the theme parks along the Gold coast (Australias equivalent to Florida) but the little boy in me wouldn't allow us to miss out on the Southern Hemisphere's biggest water park. After the fun, we arrived in Brisbane, the state's capital. We stayed a while in this okay city and enjoyed the sites and attractions. Lisa finally got to cuddle a koala at a sanctuary nearby. Not all of the city's inhabitants are animal lovers though. One pub in town had live mouse eating competitions. Nice. We avoided that, but couldn't stay away from the annual cockroach racing on Australia Day. Whilst the city put on street parades and fireworks, this pub/hotel had imported champion cockroaches from Melbourne (yeah right) and teams could bring their own cockroach along to compete with them or buy one there. The races were quite simple, the winner lived to race again, the others were stamped on. The cockroach names were fairly predictable, Master Cock, Any c*** Will Do, and our personal favourite 'The Penetrator'. In addition to the racing, they have a number of girls competing to become 'Miss Cocky 2005'. The voting was by clap-ometer and the one girl to bear all was a dead cert winner. Following the crowning, she soon stopped smiling when it was discovered that she was afraid of cockroaches. Inevitably she was then bombarded with scores of the things, the target being her long hair. It was an extremely entertaining afternoon. Heading North from Brisbane, we called in on Steve Irwin's (aka The Crocodile Hunter) Australia Zoo. The man himself was not there on the day we went but it was great fun and we left with smiles much bigger than Chester zoo could ever manage. Next stop Sunshine coast. S