Brisbane

It took just 1.5 hours on the Greyhound coach to reach Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, and the third largest city in Australia. We arrived at the transit centre at 6pm with no accommodation booked.

We walked down the escalators to find an information desk with many accommodation brochures and a free telephone for calling accommodation. Mark telephoned some hostels to find their double and twin rooms were already booked!

We were about to go for a walk but got talking to a girl from Germany and her Dutch travel buddy. They were on their way to a hostel called, wait for it, Banana Benders. With nothing booked we decided to follow
them to the hostel. After a few minutes of walking the Dutch girl anounces it's just round the corner. What she couldn't see from the map was, what felt like, the steepest street in Australia. We had no choice but to huff and puff our way to the top. We got to reception keeping our fingers crossed.....thankfully it was ok. We booked the
double room for 2 nights and were soon unpacking our clothes.

After relaxing in the room for approx 30 minutes, Lisa shot off to the laundry room to get some washing done and also popped out to the shop to buy some food. Mark got some cheap beers in at the hostel
bar......I wonder who got the best job! Lisa returned with a baguette, salad, ham and a multi-pack of noodles that we didn't eat so that ended up being more stuff to carry. We had actually fancied the noodles but you couldn't swing a cat in the kitchen and everyone seemed to be using it at the same time. Instead Mark filled the
baguette so we ate that instead. The kitchen was so packed that he made the food in the computer area......that was healthy Mark!!!

We both sat in the lounge area with our beer and food chatting to the German and Dutch girls we met earlier. The plan was to hit the town as it was Friday night. We looked at our watch and it was already past 10pm so we couldn't be bothered to get ready to go out. So we chatted some more them chilled out in our prison.....I mean room.

The next day we took a walk along South Bank beside the Brisbane River in the glorious sunshine. We sat and had breakfast here and then took a boat for a 1.5 hour cruise along the Brisbane river passing many expensive homes and old buildings. The cruise was very relaxing and well worth it unlike some cruises we have done on previous holidays. Lisa managed to get the cruise at a discounted price by saying we had a YHA card! The women didn't know what it was so Lisa said "it's like a student card". "Oh, your students, I give you a 10% discount" came the response. Nice work although I am not sure how she thought we looked like students.

After hopping off the boat we took a 15 minute ride on a giant ferris wheel (similar to the London Eye) with commentary and great photo opportunites. This was good fun as the wheel went around about 5 times.

Afterwards, we continued walking past the man made beach and lagoon area until we got to the craft market. Oh dear. Lisa was in her glory looking at all the jewellery and bags! We walked away with 2 purchases, a bracelet and a ring! Lisa, after some expert haggling, managed to barter down on the bracelet.

The 10 seconds of bartering was thirsty work so it was time to stop for a beer beside the market soaking up the busy atmosphere before walking across the Goodwill Bridge. It cost about aud$35 million to build and erect making it the most expensive crossing on the river. The bridge took us into the Central Business District and into the main shopping street.

We walked around the area taking in the atmosphere and stopped off for a drink and a bite to eat. It was a busy day being a Saturday afternoon with shoppers out making purchases, people on rollerblades, and those sitting outside alfresco cafes in the sunshine.

We had spent a long day walking around the city and as it got to 6pm it was time to get back and showered ready for a night on the town.

We were out drinking in the Caxton area of town when we noticed a lot of people passing by, we realised they were off to the Australia v New Zealand rugby match......probably the biggest match on the calendar for the Aussies. Mark was gutted he didn't have tickets as he really wanted to see a game (we later found out that the match wasn't full so he could have gone after all!!!). We decided that this area of town will turn crazy later so thought it was best not to spend our time around here so headed for the party area called The Valley.

We took a walk to get a taxi to a different suburb when we saw a Tibetan restaurant. We took a look at the menu on the window and our mouths started watering so we ventured inside, sat down and placed an order. The food was sublime as well as the service. Whilst here, we got a taxi ordered and were soon in The Valley area of Brisbane.

We took a stroll down the street into a bar/club where we had one drink and left. The DJ was playing 80's / 90's music. We wern't sure whether that was the theme that night or if he just had a limited music collection!!! We didn't hang around long enough to find out. Saturday nights were made for "C'mon Eileen". We soon found another bar playing top music with some great mixing. We spent the night here knocking out a few shapes on the dance floor until early hours.

The following morning, we awoke at 6am as we had a 7am coach booked (departing from the terminal 10 minutes away) to take us along the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise.

It was then that we realised that we couldn't check out and return the key to reception before we left as they didn't open until 7am! We had to lose our aud$20 key deposit (about £14)! We wouldn't mind but the sign on the door saying check out the night before was always open into the office therefore we weren't aware of this. The sign said if you are leaving before 7am then you need to hand your key in the prior evening. So this would mean a Saturday night in and having to wake each other up each time we used the shared toilet during the night.
Absolutely ridiculous!

Anyway after ranting and raving about it to each other we soon got bored and headed down the hill to the transit centre to board our coach.

Read on for Surfers Paradise.