Brisbane, Beaches and Koalas!

So we’ve landed!

We are in Australia, a lot of planning and time later and we are finally on Australian soil. We arrived at Brisbane a bit early and were held on the plane as Australian immigration and customs hadn’t even opened yet, a gentle reminder that it was now 5am, we had lost two hours of potential sleep inflight and neither of us had managed an amount of shut eye that would make up function correctly. Luckily though Erin, a friend of Nicola, had offered to pick us up. The half hour we had made up in-flight and the ease of which we grabbed our bags and breezed through immigration and customs, probably due to the fact our flight was the only one to have touched down thus far, meant that we had enough time for a cup of tea and to phone/skype home at one of the airport cafes.

We had booked our room through Airbnb, a site where you are able to book a room in somebodies house, as an alternative to staying in a hostel to begin with. It was a little strange arriving at the house whilst the owner was out and dropping off our things without him there. As a thank you for picking us up we took Erin for some breakfast and after a few pancakes drowned in syrup we started to crash so Erin dropped us back with plans to meet up later. We managed to get a bit of much needed sleep and a quick walk around the Ashgrove Area ,where we are staying, before we had to get ready for Erin’s return. Nicola had wanted to see what Erin normally gets up to; it’s hard to imagine what one of your closest childhood friends gets up to after they move to the other side of the world.

My managers had joked in my last few weeks of work that I was going to Australia to “find myself”, you can imagine the irony when on my first evening in Australia I “found myself” in a very colourful and, at times, musical Baptist church. Those that know me at all will imagine the concerns of myself attending church, especially one where the congregation are overtly assured in their faith, however I was on my best behaviour and enjoyed the cultural experience. Besides, there was the promise of a burger afterwards and given the level of hunger I was experiencing I was not going to jeopardise the potential of a good meal.

Getting Set-up

We had a few things to get sorted (phone, bank etc) so the next day we hopped onto a bus into the city centre. Although we had created our bank accounts from the UK, something that The Commonwealth Bank of Australia make particularly easy from home, our first stop was to finalise the accounts and collect our cards in-branch. Although this is a lot less painful than in the UK, you are not able to get your Pin without a Mobile number for them to text authorisation codes to and my international number was not playing ball so, with our accounts set-up but no cards active, we wandered across the road to get Nicola set-up with her mobile. After shopping around for the best deal (all the major phone companies were thankfully within a couple hundred metres of the bank) we were then faced with the problem of having no proof of address. We spent the afternoon between the bank and phone shop and eventually got it all sorted. Given this it was still on reflection much less painful than if we had just landed in the UK and attempted to do the same!

We also grabbed ourselves a couple of “go cards”, the Queensland version of the Oyster Card, to save a couple of cents getting around whilst we are in Queensland. Having realised how little of the city we had seen, we had a quick stroll through the rather tranquil river-side botanical gardens before jumping onto the bus home. I’m still finding it pretty strange to find birds and animal that I would normally regard as rare and tropical pestering people more than pigeons.

Koalas
A couple days in we took the opportunity to visit Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Australia’s oldest and Largest Koala Sanctuary. It’s a great little place with all manner of Australian animals to see including Kangaroos, Cockatoos and of course Koalas. There are a few shows on throughout the day, which act as a great educational for young and old. The park really shows the danger that its residents are facing and does a great job of raising awareness. You can even pay to have the obligatory photo holding a Koala if cuddling incontinent fur balls which can poo up to 200 times a day is your thing!

After we finished at the sanctuary we took a walk around the Enoggera Reservoir to do a little more wildlife spotting. It took up a couple of hours to walk around and by the time we made it back to the car the sun was starting to set, so we took a drive to a nearby lookout to watch the sunset.

 

The City

As we did not have too much opportunity to explore the city on our last outing, we decided to jump on another bus and head in to have a better look around; this time starting in South Bank. We’d been told to go there as it’s the “Cultural Centre” of Brisbane. Normally I avoid these kind of places as they usually involve a congregation of young people who refuse to work and instead spend their day talking about unpopular film and music as though producing something no normal person wants to see or hear makes you in some way superior to them. Brisbane’s South Bank is not like this however and provides a great area for all ages to explore and enjoy.

As well as housing the Museums and a Library the South Bank also has cinemas, the uni campus, an artificial beach as well as a wealth of places to eat and drink, including a Max Brenner Chocolate Bar which might just host the most amazing chocolate drinks and snacks I have ever laid my taste-buds upon! After our sugar hits, we jumped onto the CityCat to move to the main city, which allowed us also to get a great view of the Brisbane Story Bridge from the water. By the evening we had made our way back to the South Bank where it had transformed into a mix of small performance areas and a market had popped up!

Moving Day

We are still in that limbo where each day feels long, the last week seems to have flown by, yet being back home seems like a long distant memory. It doesn’t seem that we’ve been in Brisbane for a week already, even though we’ve managed to  completely fall in love with the City. Yesterday was mainly settling into our next digs, with Nicola’s cousin Sam, his partner Emma and Arlo the dog, who made us feel so welcome it feels like I’ve known them much longer than the 36 or so hours that I actually have!

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to the cinema to see Inside Out in the afternoon, once again at the South Bank, for less than £10 combined! Go see it if you haven’t had the chance yet!

Day up North

Today we managed to tag along with Sam and Emma as they headed two hours north to a hidden away beach they often go to with Arlo. Our first real Australia beach on a beautiful day, exactly what we need this morning and perfect for our first lazy Sunday in Australia. Sam and Emma bought along a kite and we had a nostalgic kiting session whilst Arlo tried his best to chase the kite up and down the beach; this dog just doesn’t give up!

After we’d mucked about on the beach for a couple hours we headed back, but stopped on the way to pick our own strawberries, which having just had them for pudding with some of Emma’s gorgeous Caramel Slice, taste so much better hand picked!

We visited one more lookout, The Wild Horse Lookout, as the final stop on the way home (there are a lot of great lookouts in and around Brisbane). The Wild Horse Lookout was particularly nice due to the vertical 700m walk up to the viewing platform which, although nearly killed me, gave amazing 360 degree inclusive of the Glass House Mountains and Brisbane in the distance.

Tomorrow morning we are off to collect a Jucy Camper before traveling down to the, slightly cold, Gold Coast for a few days. So once again off for an early-ish night!