We caught the oz bus down to Brisbane, we were the only passengers on there and it took us about three hours to get there. Along the way the driver took us up to a view point in the Glasshouse Mountains, they're uunot really mountains more like big hills but they used to be volcanoes. What you can see today is actually the lava that plugged the volcanoes, the volcanoes themselves have been eroded away. We stayed at Brisbane backpackers for four nights, we arrived in Brisbane about 1pm so for our first day we just had a wonder round town to get our bearings and sort out a new Australian phone as the one we bought in Thailand broke, and we had a vodafone sim card in it which never got signal anywhere! That night we just chilled and made some food. The next day we had another walk around, but went down the South Bank area where they have a man made beach and big outdoor swimming pools, as Brisbane isn't right on the coast. We got a coffee and some lunch then did a bit of people watching before heading to the science museum. That was most of the day gone so we headed back to the hostel thinking of what we could make for dinner, when I spotted an all you can eat sushi train for $30! Which in oz is a bargain. After an hour and a half we pretty much rolled out of the restaurant. We definitely got our $30 worth! Day three we met up with one of Mel's old friends, Emma, who she used to go to Chesterfield college with back in the day, then she moved out here with her parents. We went for a coffee and a bowl of potato wedges with her on Queens Street which is the main shopping area. Then headed down to South Bank again where there was a big Asian market going on due to the Buddhas birthday. They were selling all sorts from inscence to noodles, which we had a big bowl of each, it was just like being back in Asia again. Georgie and Tom, a couple of our Fraser island tour were in Brisbane so they came to meet up with us as well. After we had said our goodbyes to everyone we went hunting for some new shoes for Mel as her pair from Thailand were falling to bits! On our way back to the hostel we stopped of at a little cocktail bar for a drink where they had some amazing cocktails on offer, the only problem was choosing one, because their menu was like a book!! The next day was Saturday and we had booked to go on the XXXX brewery tour. It was interesting to see how they made and bottled the XXXX range but on the whole, the tour wasn't that great, had it not been for the free beer you get at the end of the tour. They gave you a choice of four drinks of their full range of beer. Some of them were pretty nice, but there is a ginger beer which Mel had, which needs a re-think! After being thrown out due to a wedding reception that was being held there, we walked back to the hostel. Seeing as it was Saturday night we figured we would go out and have a few drinks. Originally it was just going to be on our own, but we met a few people in the hostel bar and ended up joining them for a few local drinks in the West End. Our bus was at 11.30am the next morning and we headed to the next stop Surfers Paradise.