Next stop: Brisbane

So by now I have been in Brisbane and am already in a really small place called Rainbow Beach. Why am I in a small boring beach town you ask? Kevin and I took a bus up here so that we can go to Fraser Island tomorrow. But I'll tell you all about that in the next post, right now my most recent news is my stay in Brisbane.

On my last day in Sydney it wasn't very nice weather, so I packed my stuff and headed into town. When it started raining I decided to go into one of the (many) malls in the centre to have a look around. Well I can tell you, it was like nothing I have ever seen before. Three or four malls connected together, and I got completely lost at least four times trying to find my way out.

That evening I took a bus to Brisbane, stopping in Byron Bay. I would have liked to stop overnight, but all of the hostels were full, except one that charged about 60 euros per night. So in stead I just spent two hours in Byron Bay. I decided to go to the beach just for a walk and a look around, but it started raining. Great. By about 1 pm I arrived in Brisbane, but the strange thing is that Brisbane is actually an hour behind Sydney. This is only because they are in different states, since Brisbane is actually slightly further east than Sydney.

After some misunderstandings I managed to get into the same hostel as Kevin, and because I had had to call them I found out that they offer a free pick-up service from the bus station. That afternoon Kevin and I headed up mount Coot-Tha, from where we had an amazing view of the city. We then wanted to walk to the botanic gardens further down the hill, but by the time we got there the last bus back to the city centre was leaving in 10 minutes, so we didn't end up seeing the botanic gardens. Kevin then showed me around the centre, the river and the south bank. We had a pretty quiet night that first night, ready for the next day.

That morning we went to the Koala Sanctury. We saw lots of animals native to Australia - loads of different birds, dingoes, turtles, bats, emus, crocodiles, wallabies, possums, kangaroos and of course koalas. We saw a bird of prey show, which was really impressive. The birds flew really close to us, and we found out that they were far lighter than you would expect. An owl they showed us was only about 400 grams! We also saw a sheepdog show, fed kangaroos and had our picture taken holding a koala! They are all such cute animals!

After the koala sanctuary Kevin and I went to set up our trip to Fraser Island, and with a lot of luck we managed to plan everything. We will leave tomorrow morning, and arrive in Noosa (another seaside town) on wednesday evening. I have lots of pictures, and I will put them online as soon as I get to my own computer, so prepare to be bombarded in a few weeks time! Love you all!!