Brisbane: 'The River City'

Yo Mofos.

So what do I think of Surfer's? Well to be honest I didn't think it was that bad. What bugged me was that it rained everyday we were there so we never got the chance to experience the major highlight - the beach! And since we're not really in Australia for the theme/water parks, Surfer's attractions didn't really appeal. Everything is orientated around spending money and is very commercial and... well, American, for want of a better description! The whole layout of the city is based on Miami, and beside your countless shopping malls and arcades you also have the delights of Blockbuster Video, Domino's Pizza, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks (known as Burger King in the UK) and Starbucks. I can understand why Australians would go there on holiday, because as David said, "Everything is for the tourists", but for a backpacker there's not much to offer on a rainy day. Except for Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

We got the bus to Currumbin on Thursday morning, after checking out of the hostel and getting up unnaturally early after a hefty night out with the hostel. It took about 30 mins to get to the Wildlife Sanctuary, and although it was $25 to get in (tenner) it was well worth it. It was much bigger than I anticipated and as soon as we walked in we saw exactly what we had come to see - koalas! They were bigger than I imagined but very cute, curled up in balls in the most uncomfortable looking positions, wedged in between tree branches. Apparently this position minimises heat loss on rainy days. On sunny days they sprawl out. Here's more interesting facts about koalas to impress your friends:

• 'Koala' is aboriginal for 'no water', because they hardly drink at all.
• They spent 80% of their lives sleeping, 19% eating, and 1% moving.
• This is because they only eat eucalyptus leaves, which release a minimum amount of calories.
• They can't even digest eucalyptus leaves, their only food source, a bacterium does it for them which their mothers feed to them in the form of faeces when they are born.
• This bacterium is a derirative of chlamydia, so they all have chlamydia.
• Their pouches are upside down.
• Research shows they actually might be getting dumber by every generation, which defies evolution.

Anyway, so yeah the koalas were really cool. We resisted the urge to have a picture done with them as we're not Japanese. We also saw aboriginal dancers, turtles, snakes, possums, fish, lizards, goannas, crocodiles, wombats, tasmanian devils, dingoes, wallabies, emus, cassowaries, echidnas and - get this - we FED kangaroos! It was so good! I had so much fun and I would recommend it to anyone.

We got back about 5pm, David came to pick us up, and after a humungous lamb dinner and Christmas pudding, ice cream and custard for sweets (and a truly weird film with Tom Hanks) it was an early night as we were so tired from the previous night out!

This morning we got up very early on David's insistance that we set off an hour earlier than necessary, ("Just to make sure") and after a cooked breakfast, a few photos and meeting up with the guys back at the hostel we were on our way to Brisbane. It looked very city-like as we were driving in, but as it was a sunny day it looked pretty impressive. Our hostel said they had us booked at their annexe 3 blocks down the main street, and after carting our rucksacks, hand luggage and food bags all the way down there they were like, "Er... your not booked here." The result meant that even though there was 8 of us (enough to fill a dorm) they've put Me and Claire in a separate room on the floor above, and the others are all in the same room! Gutted! It's ok though cos 2 of the guys were in a whole separate hostel in Surfer's and we still saw them all the time. Oh well.

Had a bit of a look around Brisbane this afternoon, mainly down Queen Street Mall, and found the tackiest, most cheesiest souvenir shop in the world, ever. It's called 'Australia, The Gift', and they have a voiceover saying "... because Australia is a gift to the rest of the world". Me and Claire were in fits. They had all sorts of crap, including koala pasta shapes, which I felt very tempted to buy for the novelty value. In the end we were very boring and just bought keyrings (mine a koala - my new favourite animal, and Claire's a platypus cos they're way cool) and some postcards. I promise I will buy some novelty crap for you guys back home at some point!

I'll post again before we leave Brisbane and let you know what's happening. Take care!