Sunny Brisbane
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2008
1
82
105
Trip End
Jan 19, 2009
Brisbane,
Queensland,
Australia
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Bumblebee poses
Despite the fact that he hadn't been there for over 4 years, Will managed to navigate us straight to Ray's house which was pretty impressive. After we'd settled in and had dinner Ray took us to his local for Karaoke night (to my delight, not so much Will's!). After a few drinks I got up and sang, Ray was a natural (and even brought his own cd!) while Will watched from a safe distance! After a few hours of catching up with Ray and chatting to the crazy locals, Sharon joined us and taught Will and I how to play Pokies. She couldn't believe we don't have them in the UK (for those of you who don't know they are like fruit machines only far less complex!). It must have been beginners luck as we won $25! We just about caught the end of the evening's entertainment outside in the pub car park (the police obviously turning up 10 minutes after the fight had ended!) then headed back to crash. On Sunday morning Ray cooked us a yummy breakfast then we drove into Brisbane. Wandered round the city for a while, through China Town into Fortitude Valley - a cool suburb of bars, live music venues, funky cafes and boutique shops. It was a fairly quiet Sunday afternoon but we decided to come back here later in the week to check out the nightlife. We headed back to Ray's and went out with him, Sharon and her youngest, Mitchell, to the local RSL Club. We had dinner and tried our luck on the pokies again but lost $5 - beginners luck run out already
Meet Mitchell!
!Monday we drove to Dreamworld, Australia's biggest theme park. We had an awesome day going on all the rides and almost had the place to ourselves - a weekday in winter definitely wasn't busy! The scariest ride had to be the Giant Drop which is just that, you are hoisted up a tower, sat there for 20 seconds then dropped 39 storeys at the speed of gravity - oooooof! We couldn't even scream it was too terrifying! Needless to say we only did that one once! They also had an animal park there and after we'd watched the tiger show we went off to see the little baby tiger cubs. The other amusing highlight of the day was when Will decided that we should go on the Log Ride, despite the fact that it was quiet chilly and he was in a t shirt. He was determined that we wouldn't get wet - the photos speak for themselves!! That night we had a quiet one in at Rays, exhausted from our day out!
On Tuesday we spent the morning catching up on emails and uploading photos onto Travelpod, then after lunch drove to a couple of local lookouts, Wellington Point and Cleveland Point. We spent our last evening at Rays watching movies with Mitchell.
In the morning we said our goodbyes and drove into Brisbane to a guesthouse in The Valley
Story Bridge
. They didn't actually have any room for us so we ended up sleeping in the van just outside and using their showers instead! We walked back into the city for lunch and booked a sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands - it's the same boat that Will and Anna went on when they came to Aus 4 years ago so should be good fun. We went off our separate ways in the afternoon - Will checked out the arty parky area of South Bank while I took in the the culture of the shopping malls! That evening we headed to China Town and went to The Golden Palace, which was supposed to be one of the best Chinese restaurants in the area. I'm not sure if the food was dodgy or whether we just ate too much but we spent the rest of the night being sick - what a waste of money! Before we headed back to be poorly we had a drink at The Ric where we saw a really good local band called The Estates.We both felt a bit under the weather in the morning but we had planned to go to Wet'n'Wild water park and the weather was lovely so we had a fancy breakfast in Holland Park, a rather nice town on the outskirts of Brisbane, then after a breakfast pizza, some raisin toast and 2 chooclate milkshakes felt ready to face the world again! It took about an hour to get to Wet'n'Wild - just enough time for our brekkie to go down! We spent the day going on all the water slides which were awesome! After the initial shock of the chilly water we had a great time. They best ride had to be the Tornado - you both sit in a rubber ring facing each other and are pushed down a tube, over a couple of bumps, freefall down an almost vertical drop into a huge funnel that whirlpools you round and round until you pop out the bottom of the funnel into the pool below! AWESOME!
Comments
even
camera and adventure and like a real natural adventure up north I love it being around north qld......... you must go to Magnetic Island near Townsville.........long fery ride..c rack oen apicnic but the gasy smel of the engine. always the fast taxi sevice re speed boats..........heapos great bches good fun friend had pole house in there and anoher curious oman a a restraunt and says the food is al good still.....mopads....bicyling....too hot for hiking swimming is the thing.......