Diana Plaza Brisbane

... The south bank of the river has good walking tracks, which have been very tastefully designed with flowers, bars and a beach amongst other things!

Now in Queensland, I stayed at Banana Benders Hostel, which I couldn’t help but be concerned there was a gay theme running here, but like everywhere else, it was just full of Germans! It amazingly ...

... on a big communal BBQ for all the guests and dished out free beer and wine, had a good night chatting to people from around the world. Since then have stayed in Base, the city centre party hostel (a bit of a dump) and now the Prince Consort in 'The Valley' which is decent enough and has a nice bar and beer garden out back. Live music most nights.

In the past week I've had a wicked BBQ outdoors by the river (ant burgers, mmm) watched a free ...

... no decent maps to guide us.....knowing it is only an hour drive from Brisbane to Surfers Paradise......you have to remember this small fact....only an hours drive we saw no issues in front of us. Easy enough getting out of the airport....easy enough to be on the motorway heading to Surfers.....and ...

... and even more got in my eyes. Most people just starred at me and some laughed. Little did they know how hard it was. Brian was one of the few that didn't eat sand that day. In fact, most people only went once, either because they didn't want to climb the dune again or because they had too much sand in their month the first time. Regardless, it was fun to try.

The ride back to Brisbane was excellent as we got to see the sunset ...

... who can rake the most havoc in a restaurant" stakes - I still think mine would win. We finished off the evening at Hennings place with a couple of bottles of scotch and some dubious drinking/party games. I'll just say that Andrina's impersonation of Maggie Thatcher and Barack Obama, though quite similar, will remain memorable. Though most memorable was Henning's joke - now it may be due to the fact I was slobbered with scotch but I couldn't but help ...

... are encouraged with the boys. The next day we left the boys in our second Ford Falcon station wagon, which we named Ayla for obvious reasons, heading south down the coast to Surfers Paradise. Man I tell you those kiwi's def come through, here we stayed with my good friend from Auckland, Sam. The layout was great and I can't believe his roommates agreed to this: 1 couple from South Africa, another guy roommate from South Africa, another girl and Sam from Auckland. So in this ...

... but the faces she pulled were rather amusing. With Daniels trip for tomorrow being canceled he had to make an urgent visit to the travel agents, which meant less drinking time at the brewery. Luckily he was able to book on to an alternative trip, so with that sorted we returned to hostel to get changed before going for Tea. We were joined by a couple Daniel had become friendly with whilst traveling OZ and whom he was ...

... a restaurant and Anzac Square, which is in the centre of the city with cool fountains and shady seats. Having completed this part of my planned tour, with the sky getting very dark, I headed for the centre of the city and managed to get under cove in a café, just in time to watch a spectacular thunder storm which broke over Brisbane with monsoon conditions for an hour or more. I also took the opportunity to get a quick haircut and, as always seems to happen, once it was ...

... After we got into our rooms, we went into town and shopped a little at Queen Street Mall because we needed more sunscreen and stuff. Unfortunately, we bought all that before going to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary... but oh well! We took a taxi there, because we were running out of time. Unfortunately for us, we had a taxi driver who definitely had to be a FOB... he couldn't understand anything we were saying! Lisa had to phone to find out how ...

... for the weather to clear at the Great Barrier Reef, we had only two days left to spend in Brisbane and we were not able to explore the city as we would've liked to; especially since we had to take a full day off to run errands and get ready for the Fiji leg of our trip. Therefore, we packed all the sightseeing in one day, with help from the Richard, Susan and David who took their morning off (the advantages of having your own business!) to show us around ...