brisbane

April 23rd-April27th

Thursday night my floormate Josh drove the Americans and I to the airport. We boarded our plane at 9:45PM and arrived in Brisbane at 11:30PM. It was too late to get any form of cheap transportation so we hailed a cab. $41 and 7 stall outs later we made it to the heart of the city, Palace Backpackers Hostel. We thought we had the hostel booked previously because we knew we'd be getting there late, but it turned out Morgan's reservations didn't go through. We managed to convince the reception attendant that we only needed two beds and thus miraculously 6 people shared a 4 bed room. I guess we weren't the only ones to chat up the receptionist! It was a pretty nice hostel, though my bed was squeaky and two people got up at the crack of dawn and were banging around in the room. I was ready to go once the 8AM alarm went off.

Friday we decided to be cheap and save money, so naturally our first stop was STARBUCKS!!! YUMMMM. haha. But more to the cheap side we decided to have breakfast and lunch from a grocery store. This was a good idea as 24 bucks got us a huge bag of cereal that lasted till Sunday, 6 donuts, gummy worms, 3 things of bottled water, peanut butter, jelly, shapes (a delicous Australian version of cheeze-its)and probably other things I can't remember. We enjoyed some of these delicious products in the food court of the shopping center we were in. We also checked out the sweetest store in that shopping center, Australian Geographic. Wicked. It reminded me of this story my mom use to work at, The Nature Company. Of course I bought something here, but I can’t say what as its someone’s birthday present!

Next we decided to head toward City Hall to get a map so we could give ourselves a heritage tour of the city. In City Hall there is an observation tower--basically you ride up an elevator in the center of the city hall clock and can look out at the city. It was pretty cool, but the view wasn't that far--mostly you could see the other huge buildings surrounding. The cool part is that the city hall is built on a swamp so its under construction right now because its sinking. The City Hall is a beautiful building and is also home to two museums--one is an art museum, which was wicked cool. It was mostly modern art, but unlike most modern art I've seen, it made a lot of sense. (see the pictures) And the other museum was furniture. I didn’t like this so much because if you tried to reach toward the furniture this beeping sound went off and I kept forgetting it was going to happen.

Next we enjoyed lunch in the Anzac Memorial Park, there were heaps of people there enjoying their lunch, dressed in business suits. There were also some crazy pigeons and ibises that wanted to eat our sandwiches. After, we decided to go check out some more free museums on the other side of town. We made our way, in a roundabout pattern—stopping at this street mall, casino and these huge circular balls in the middle of the walk way, finally crossing a bridge on which we could see the whole city. We could see about 4 bridges in either direction, it was a bit odd that there were so many. Anyway, great view. As we headed over the bridge we saw this ginormous ferris wheel—Scott and Morgan were excited so I let them ride it, kids you know! Haha I enjoyed a bit more touristy reading in my travel guide. When they were done we took a walk through a university campus that was situated in the city, I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember the name now, but most of you wouldn’t know what it was anyway right? At the extent of our walk we found a man-made lagoon and decided to check it out. It was chilly, but there was tons of good people watching to be done. We were absolutely amazed by the number of tan people, and by tan I mean TAN. Weird! Anyway, I really wanted to go check out this other museum that supposedly had a sweet science center in it. So we headed back the way we came until we found this. It was pretty sweet. There was an entire exhibit on megafauna and other current fauna of Australia. There was also an entire collection of birds, reptiles, corals and random fish, including a Mola Mola! There was an enlightening exhibit on Aboriginal culture and finally a pretty cool exhibit on Darwin. I should also mention there were some random exhibits on Queensland itself and of boats and airplanes that had tackled some improbable feats. (Check out the pics!) Sadly, the science center was not free, and none of us really wanted to pay. With that said it was nearly time to head back to our hostel collect our bags and head South for the surf adventure of a lifetime!! The walk back was leisurely as we found out our ride (giant Mojo Surf bus) was delayed, so we stopped for some pushups in a park (to warm my body up), peanut butter and jelly and our huge bag of cereal. Yes, I should mention it is getting colder in Australia! (Today it was 78 degrees but I had to wear a light sweater because I thought it was cold!)

After collecting our bags from the Palace backpackers hostel we waited outside for our bus to arrive. We were quite stupefied by the people waiting there. There were Asian girls in high heels, couples making out and obviously boys that thought they were the coolest thing on the planet. It basically looked like the oddest set of people possible. But as the phrase goes, never judge a book by its cover—they all turned out to be foreigners—not a single American other than ourselves (actually I lied there was a single other American). So already we were off to a good start. Our surf instructor was exactly what you would imagine a surf instructor to look like. He was probably a 40 year old man in a 17 year old’s body, tan skin, spiked hair, never left the town he grew up in and this was considered “Living the Dream.” Despite this paradox he was a pretty cool dude, he called us legend surfers and really helped us out in the water.

Anyway, when we were all on the bus (it was such a sweet bus by the way) we started out by passing a microphone around and had to introduce ourselves by saying our names, our turn ons and our turn offs. My turn on was the ocean and turn off is Americans, everybody laughed at this. There were people from Germany, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Venezuela, Holand and so on, WICKED COOL. For anyone that doesn’t know, I love foreign people (even if they aren’t the greatest person they still earn points in my book for being foreign). Yupp so this was the start of our 5 hour journey to Byron Bay, Coff’s Harbor and a bit farther south. The bus ride was entertaining, we made a few pit stops to pick up people and for some to get alcohol (you know, the scene of a surfer) and we also watched an amazingly boring surf movie. When we finally got there we were asked to split into groups of four –so this Holand girl asked it she could room with us, naturally we said yes. She turned out to be a good roommate, not a super partier and not sketchy. Our accommodation was pretty cool, basically a little trailer with two sets of bunk beds and a tiny tiny bathroom you could barely turn around in. But it was warm and sleep felt good.

The next morning we had to wake up “early,” fortunately for us, early in the surf world is really NOT early. Wake up was 8 and breakfast was delicious, I think this is when I became addicted to tea (even more so than the Paluma field trip). Our first surf lesson was at 9:30AM and I was pumped for it. We had a different surf pro talk to us this morning, its so bad, but I can’t remember his name. He gave us a bit of a lecture then got us suited up into “shorties,” short sleeve wetsuits. Then the coolest thing ever—we got our surfboards, radical! Morgan and I carried ours together because honestly those things are so dang long and thick that you just can’t manage it yourself. When we got down to the beach we practiced our stand up approach on the boards in the sand. This was pretty fun, and obviously I did a much better job on land than in the water. I was situated next to some Colombian girls speaking Spanish, so that was pretty cool. Finally we got to make our way to the water. It was not long until I was catching waves—er attempting and falling. It was really not as hard as I thought, I really thought I wouldn’t even get up on one wave for the first session, but I did! Morgan and I faired pretty well, but Scott—he was a natural born surf pro—I think he caught everything he attempted! Anyway, I honestly have enough fun falling off of things (like snowboarding) that I didn’t mind if I didn’t catch a lot. When we had to go in for lunch I was so bummed, I really wanted to stay out there forever! Surfing, my new found favorite sport? Quite possibly!

Lunch was the usual sandwich, but after lunch we were headed into town to check out the Legend Surfer, Scott Dillon’s, surf museum. I don’t know much about surfers but I guess this guy was the “shiz.” He has made loads of peoples surf boards and continues to do so today. His museum was packed with famous people’s surf boards, articles, pictures and knick-nacks. It was cool. The man himself had pretty good stories too.

I’m not sure if this happened before or after the museum, but we stopped at this lookout point where we could see some amazing waves and a beautiful view of the ocean. The waves were massive.

Finally we made it back for our 3:30 second session on the waves. This was awesome, the waves were pretty good but the current was rough. Needless to say I was not disappointed to go back in—it was a good session but I was tired.

That night everyone was pretty tired, but we were supposedly suppose to party like surfers. I ended up laying on a picnic table taking pictures of a candle flame followed by disappearing into the TV room to watch a movie. Step-brothers—great movie check it out. Unfortunately the projector in the TV room stopped half way through so we ended our night by 10 PM. Slept like a lamb!

The next day we again had an “early” start again. This time no lecture just straight for the water. It was great, we were a bit apart from the group so we didn’t run into each other. I had the instructors help me catch some waves a few times, but I also got them on my own. Its hard to describe how fun surfing is, but the surfers do it pretty well, “living the dream.” Its so relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. When you’re done all you want to do is smile.

After this session we had to eat lunch and head out. We were out by 12:30 and on our way to Byron Bay. This took 3 hours maybe and was back up the coast. Byron Bay is a great surf spot for those who are good. It also had some amazing views. Definitely a tourist and party spot. We were allowed to get out and walk around for two hours—get food, site see, eat etc. We stopped in some pretty cool shops and Scott and I split a pizza. Then we all got icecream (of course!) I forgot to mention our Holland roommate joined us, so that was pretty nice. The view of the ocean from the bay was so gorgeous—there was a mist coming in as the sun was setting and the people down on the beach were silhouetted so perfectly.

When our two hours was up we were back to the bus and on our way back to Brisbane, I think it took us about 3 more hours to finally get back to Palace Backpackers (hostel). We decided to find a spot for the night because we hadn’t made contact with any hostels before. We really wanted to get to Moreton Bay, in preparation for our trip to Moreton Island the following day. However their reception closed at 8 and we were more than 40 minutes across town when 8 pm came. It was a repeat of Sydney, I called a million places and we even walked to a bunch –it was Anzac weekend so everything was booked. We tried a Holiday Inn just to see if it was affordable, it was 195 yuck! That wasn’t going to happen, so we continued to walk, finally coming across the Brisbane Transit Center and finally Chill Backpackers ( I forgot to mention we ran into this crazy man who really wanted to help us find a hostel—and he had worked at Chill—though at the time we had no idea what he was talking about-now we understood!) Chill happened to be one of the newest hostels, it wasn’t even in the tour books. It was a great place—we each had a bed for 35 dollars including sheets and it was just the three of us in the room. So nearly as good as the hotel from Sydney. Anyway, we wanted to really get the hostel experience so we checked out their roof haha and kitchen. On the roof they have a movie room and it actually caught our interest. The Happening was playing—again pretty good (but then again I really like anything I see) After this it was pretty much time for bed as we would have an early morning since we were now even farther away from Moreton than we were earlier that night.

Luckily the transit center we passed was exactly what we needed, so the following morning (Monday) we took a little walk to the transit center. We got train tickets and stored our huge bags in a locker (3 huge luggage things fit in 1 locker costing 7 bucks! Good deal!). We really had no idea where we were going, Moreton Bay is not known as a tourist spot and therefore actually the train dude didn’t even know which stop to get off at. We decided to go with whatever the heck I said –it didn’t work out so good—we ended up walking around some random town haha but it was really entertaining and quite honestly I didn’t mind seeing Brisbane from a locals point of view and I definitely would repeat my mistake again. Finally we found the right stop and got off—well it still wasn’t the right stop but we made it right enough. We ended up at a place called Manly (ya reminds you of Sydney right? Weird) and this was a quite place, with a big boating area and school children running about. We decided at that point it was hopeless to go to Moreton Island (the 2^nd largest sand dune island!) and were just going to enjoy Manly. I bought breakfast and lunch from a grocery store because I wanted to try to be cheap (see mom and dad I’m trying!) and Morgan and Scott enjoyed a yummy looking meal at a café. Pretty much the rest of the day we hung out on the white beach of Manly, only moving to dip our feet in the water and walk around to some lookout point. It was really beautiful, but hey isn’t everything here? We just relaxed, read books, took pictures, ate more food..enjoyed our peaceful Monday afternoon.

Finally we had to go back and catch our plane back to Townsville. I’ll spare you the exact details, but we finally got to experience the skyrail of Brisbane-a private line costing 14 bucks each! REDICULOUS, but with the high traffic of that hour it was cheaper than a taxi. (Yes don’t worry we did go back to the transit center to get our bags). The plane ride back was enjoyable, I attempted to snooze and listened to some good beats. Noor and Dylan were there when we arrived to drive us back to school. It was really nice to see them again : )

Yup that’s about it for Brisbane. Nice city, relaxing, peaceful.