The Camper Van Adventures..

Chapter 4.. 'The cougars rob the casino..'

We got to Brisbane penniless- our money hadn't cleared onto our travel Mastercards, the don't accept English debit
cards over here, Lodge's credit card is maxed out and I don't know the pin to my credit card.. So with just enough
money to pay for the campsite, we stayed in on Tuesday night hopeful that our funds would be available the next
morning.

It turned out not. All in all it was a disastrous morning. It was raining outside so lodge trundled off to the internet
hut to check the money situation looking fetching in her pj's and rain mac, while I set about making us a cup of
tea. She came back with the bad news that all our money was still hanging in some sort of bank black hole while
I had the even worse news that the gas in our cooker had run out so we couldn't even have a cuppa! Brilliant!

We set off into the city with our last ten dollars, we had planned to get the bus, but we didn't have enough money,
so we had to drive. After driving around the city centre about 30 times, in and out of three ridiculously expensive
car parks (our ten dollars wouldn't have even got us 15 minutes!) we eventually found somewhere to leave Dolly
and headed for the Casino. Our only options at this point were gambling or busking and we figured we'd have a
better chance gambling !

So we rocked up to the Casino, striped off our sexy rain macs only to be turned away for wearing rubber thongs
(that is Aussie speak for flip flops.. It's not that we were only wearing rubber underwear under our macs..) So it was
back to the car park to change our shoes. Only problem was my only footwear which wasn't rubber thongs broke
while we were in Singapore. I couldn't quite bring myself to throw them out and lucky I didn't, so there we are in
the car park, I'm sewing my shoe back together while Lodge (hungry as usual) makes cheese sandwiches in the
kitchen!! So with my lovely All Saints sandals now accessorised with safety pins and various coloured threads, we
headed back to the Casino only for my other shoe to break just as we walk in the foyer...typical ! (Now there's a
time it'd be handy I did only have one leg, as two people thought in Gili!)

Then our luck changed. We sat down at Roulette and within 5 spins had turned our $10 into $450. Unbelievable,
fluky, beginners luck or whatever you want to call it, we managed to pick the right number four times out of five
on our first five spins. Not bad when there's 36 numbers to choose from ! Lodge picked black 26- her Grandad's
lucky number- on the first spin, and of course, it came up. To say we were excited is an understatement!
The croupier couldn't believe it, the two English girls, who clearly didn't have a clue what they were doing (nor could
they afford a working pair of shoes) and they'd won first time. Beginners luck maybe. Second spin we didn't get it..
But then came 3 wins in a row each time we betting just $2.50 and winning $90 and with each win we were becoming
louder and more excited while the croupier became more and more stunned. We had a few spins we didn't win and
then our fifth winner popped up and we decided to be sensible and called it a day..leaving $360 richer than we'd
arrived and so happy we felt like crying !

That evening we thought we'd treat ourselves to a night out only to get to the bar and be denied entry for wearing
our rubber thongs again ! Apparently you can go shopping topless (I mean guys.. We haven't taken our tops off
in any supermarkets yet.. We only do that in restaurants!) and shoeless in Australia but not get into clubs wearing
flip flops.. Damn it!

We made up for it the next evening and had a classic night out in Brisbane. We'd met an English guy, Danny,
in Byron Bay who lived in Brisbane. He'd invited us to his house party on the Wednesday, as it was we didn't go,
but we met up with him and his mate, Sam, the following night. Due to the copious amounts of goon we'd
consumed that night in Byron neither of us could really remember what he looked like. Essentially we were going
on a blind date, and being Lodge and I, things got even funnier when we found out they were only 18! What
Cougars!

But we had a really good night with them, lots to drink, lots of dancing (in true Lauren and Sarah style mostly
with very ugly guys just for jokes!), a less successful visit to the casino, danced in the street to a busker who
was taking requests, an after party at theirs courtesy of Michael Buble and rocked up home as the sun was
coming up, flopped into bed without a sheet or any pj's.

While in Brisbane we had planned to also go to Southbank where there is an inner city lagoon, which sounded
lovely in the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately since the Lonely Planet was published it was washed away in the floods
a few months back. I guess we can't accuse the Lonely Planet of lying on this occasion!

What we did do was go to Australia Zoo..home of the Crocodile Hunter and absolute legend Steve Irwin! It was
fantastic. We saw the Crocoseum- where Steve did his shows- a crocodile show, had a picture holding a koala,
saw all the kangaroos, elephants, tigers and much much more. It was Lodge's mum's birthday a couple of days
later so she carried a banner round with her all day and had pictures with it and various animals plus some of the
many huge Steve posters!

They had a collection of the tributes that had been let for Steve after his death on show. It was so so sad- we
both had a bit of an emotional moment- and seeing the extent of the amazing work he did with crocodile and
all the other animals was incredible. What a legend.

After the zoo, we went to have a look around the animal hospital Steve built in honour of his mum, who'd
originally founded the zoo, just before his death. There were little incubators everywhere- it was a bit like the
SCBU ward at a hospital- and we saw a tortoise having its bandages changed and two injured koala curled up
asleep.. It was so heart warming!

Despite the rain and the initial run of bad luck, Brisbane turned out to be another awesome few days. Next stop
Noosa.. time to learn to surf !!