"Lazing around with kangaroos..."
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2004
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88
102
Trip End
Ongoing
Brisbane,
Australia
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Arriving into Brisbane after a relatively short 4 hour bus trip, we booked ourselves into the cleverly titled hostel "Bunk" (see what they did there, these Aussie's are so clever with names!) in the party district "The Valley." Don't ask me why its called the valley as I couldn't see mountains to the side of it, only countless bars, cafe's, strip joints and sex shops! A perfect place for us to stay for 2 days!
The Hostel we stayed in is one of the few new hostels that now class themselves "Flashpackers" a term given to people that want to be backpackers but aren't willing to sleep in grotty bedrooms and share a bathroom with 50 other people
01. Al together now... aah!
. We couldn't actually see what the fuss about this hostel really was, it looked the same as most we had stayed at along the way, the only notable addition was the ensuite shower, either way apparently it warranted an extra $5 a night?! Give me grotty any day!Paul had now been in Australia for 2 weeks and was nearing the end of his stay here, but we still hadn't really been out clubbing together, we thought Brisbane would be ideal for that, but to our surprise found out that all, bar one, club was closed (it was Sunday). Warning bells should have rang out when the receptionist asked us if we knew what night it was tonight, eager to get in we all just nodded and walked in. It wasn't until we got inside and noticed blokes with fairy wings walking around, that we realised we had walked into Brisbane's biggest Gay night, and being a public holiday the following day, had attracted even more than usual!
That said we actually had quite a good laugh, one thing we now know about gay nights is that they attract a lot of beautiful women, happy in the knowledge they wouldn't get hit onto all night, which in tow made it easier for us to chat them up, of course letting them know we were actually straight as soon as possible! And without blowing our trumpets, we did all get quite a lot of attention from the boys, so much so me and Paul had to become an item for the night just to have an excuse not to get 'chatted up', leaving Dan alone and single
02. More Koals's!
! I've never actually seen so many happy people when the dj dropped the new (well old now) Madonna song with the Abba music, it just couldn't get any better for them!Waking up the next morning we were all relieved to discover that we hadn't had our drink spiked and taken home by one of the fairy boys! Probably due to the fact we drunk from bottles all night, with our thumb pressed firmly over the top! That's what they tell the girls to do don't they?!
With only a day left in Brisbane before we caught a flight to Sydney, we decided that Paul had to hold a koala bear whilst he was in the country. You just have to do it! So, hangover in tow, we headed out of town to Australia's first, and largest Koala bear sanctuary. With about 250 koala's inside, you can imagine the appeal quickly wore off, but we did of course get to hold one and have our photo, something for the wall at home! The good thing about the sanctuary though was its other animals. As well as the Koala's Paul got to feed the Kangaroo's, see a host of Aussie animals, watch an Aussie sheep dog show ( I thought this was more of an English thing) and get chased by a crazy duck! (see video).
Just before leaving for the airport we made a quick boat trip down Brisbane's river on one of their new super fast cats. Being just another city it wasn't too interesting, although we did find it funny to know that only a week before one of these boats had managed to completly run down a passing 8 women rowing boat. Sadly nothing that exciting happened to us!
So with our "Hold a Koala bear" box ticked, there was nothing else left to do than catch our flight. Only 2 more days left to go...
Comments
Gay
Looking forward to the 'I knew you were gay' email from ya Dave!