G'day all!

We're in Brisbane! (Or BrisVegas as some of the locals call it, for an unknown reason!) Upon arriving here on Wednesday 10th October we checked into our hostel then decided to have a quick tour of the city to see what it has to offer. A walk down the Queen Street Mall, the largest mall in the city, took us through the the newly renovated South Bank area, the cultural part of Brisbane. Here we found many museums, shops and cinemas all along the riverfront. I also had my first encounter with the Ibis, a 3ft bird that stole my potato wedges! I guess it taught me for continuing to eat unhealthily...
After walking past the city lagoon, unfortunately closed at the time, we caught the City Cat up and down the river, seeing the city and it's numerous bridges all lit up at night. This was followed by an extremely healthy salad made by superchef Mette preceded a much needed early night.

The next day we went to Australia Zoo! Set up by Steve Irwin's family in the 60's, it has now developed into Australia's largest zoo with over 100 acres of land. It alos holds many animals, including the world's 20 most venomous snakes (we didn't hold these ones!) echidnas (Or enchiladas as Mette accidently called them!) cool wombats, kangaroos, loads of koalas, cassowaries and dingos to name but a few! We also saw a tiger and a croc show, which was fresh as it showed their normal behavior in the wild rather than making them jump through hoops as everywhere else seems to do!

We headed back to the city to a $6 steak, a visit to the cinema to see Evan Almighty (good film, go see it!!) and then a tea and coffee at Starbucks, by far the most western thing we have done in 3 months!

Today we've been relaxing and shopping in the scorching heat of the sunshine coast. It's 1:10pm now and we're just about to head off to Surfer's Paradise, where I'll hopefully update you next!!

Hope everyone is well back home!! Miss you all,

Paul and Mette xxx