Brisbane

We arrived in Brisbane Wednesday* night after a nice drive through the Gold Coast from Byron Bay. Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia (approx 2 million) and is located just about midway up the east coast of the country at the south end of a state called Queensland. Queensland is home of the Great Barrier Reef and pretty much all of the deadliest things you hear about in Australia including, but not limited to spiders, snakes, sharks, jellyfish, etc. Queensland has a tropical/subtropical climate which supposedly means that I won't be cold anymore on this trip. The wet, humid, hot season is their summertime (December – February) and the winter is supposed to be more temperate.

Brisbane is a nice city reminiscent of Melbourne. My initial thought was that it's really just a toned down version of Melbourne: bigger city but still not bursting with activity like Sydney, a nice downtown, a river running through, not really any big attractions to see. We spent Wednesday night walking around the part of downtown that was still open and then watching Xmen 2 in our room (don't hate - we do what we want on our vacation!). We turned in for the night just after realizing that we left our towels at the Byron Bay hostel. Oops.

Thursday we had all day in Brisbane which we used to mostly just walk around and see the city. Like I said before, there aren't really any huge attractions in Brisbane (one of the reasons you probably haven't heard of it if you reside in the US of A) but it's a nice place. We went to the museum in city hall (which sort of sucked), bought new towels downtown, took a nice walk through South Bank (cute with shops, cafes, and an awesome man-made beach that must be totally jam packed when it's not under construction), and then continued up through their botanical gardens, which are nice and populated with possums who are only mildly scared of people.

We had an excellent lunch at a place Kane picked out then took the City Cat – public transport system on the river that runs through the city, very cool – back the center of downtown and walked back to our hostel. We finished the night by driving around – there wasn't hardly any traffic! - and having dinner at a truly excellent Turkish restaurant in the West End. I think Brisbane would be a really nice city to live in: good climate (though I suspect it's a bit muggy in the summer), nice size, general good feel to it.

We took Friday morning to explore one of the many wildlife parks in the area. I wanted to go to one with the largest koala breeding programs in Australia, but Kane wanted to see the Australia Zoo – the (previous) home of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. So we did what Kane wanted (for once) and drove up to the infamous park. This was by far the best zoo I've ever seen. The animal habitats were stunning and the entire place was in excellent order. We had a great time seeing the crocs, patting the roos, and taking pics of the elephants, echidnas, and everybody else. I did feel a bit Jurassic Park-esque with the double fences around the croc areas and the awesome warning signs:
Seriously though, seeing all the Steve Irwin tribute memorabilia made me a bit sad – I feel like his death was a real loss to the world, and to his cute family. At least his dream lives on – those crocks are huge! P.S. - pics will be added to Picasa soon.

*Ok so I'm way behind on the blogging. I apologize. It's been a bit hard to find good internet, especially at reasonable prices. And these entries take some finesse people!