Brisbane was about 2 hours from Noosa, again on the backpacker bus!

We were interested in seeing Brisbane, as we had heard it called 'Brisvegas' and we wanted to experience another city. The writeups about Brisbane say that it has everything Melbourne and Sydney have, with more sun. Hmmmm. I cant say we agree - it was ok, the southbank has a beach -which is pretty nice, juxtaposed with skyscrapers, but apart from that its a bit souless. But due to all the flooding, we couldnt do much in Noosa, so we got to Brisbane earlier - it was also safer to be in a city. Also, one of my 30th presents was 2 nights on Moreton Island with Dolphin feeding (Im so lucky!) so we had to be in Brisbane for a couple more days than planned.

Within those extra days fell Australia day - which is like St Georges Day, yet it is a national holiday. Its also a bit of a contentious day - depending on where you sit on the matter, some people call it 'invasion day' - i.e when the land was stolen from the Aboringines, as opposed to when the land was conquered..awkward!!

But for the most part, it is a big party day, bbq's, street parties etc. So we went to the southbank and got involved in the festivities, meeting a really dodgy east end gangster who is not allowed back in England and a real aussie couple in their fifties...we do attract the best.

Brizzie was also mostly pouring with rain, so it was good we were in a nice traditional old hotel. There was a two hour reprieve from the rain in 4 days (Im not exaggerating) we got a bit of crazy golf in.

As you can tell, Brisbane was a very interesting time..;-)

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