Bris Vegas aka Brissie aka Brisbane

China Town
China Town
View from the pedestrian bridge over the river
View of the city sky scrappers from the south bank
Tibet Peace Pavilion in South Bank
At night on the river
On the river at night
On the river at night
On the river at night
On the river at night
View from the look out over the city
View from the lookout over the city
On the walk back down from the lookout
Aboriginal art walk along the way
Aboriginal art walk along the way
Aboriginal art walk along the way

Alice Springs from the city lookout
Alice
War memorial at the top of the look out

Well i finally reached the end of my time on the Oz Experience bus. I finally reached Brisbane!!! It was kinda weird though as there was only me and another person on the bus and so the driver didn't bother stopping at the national park for us to do a walk but just drove straight through to Brisbane!!!

The hostel I was staying at was in a old renovated building in the heart of Brisbane just opposite the train station. It wasn't my first choice as it was one of those filthy hostel chains they have on the east coast. It did though have a balcony thing around each floor of the building so you could walk around the building on each floor and see the city. I checked into my room and did what i always do now, that is check the mattress for bed bugs. I checked the free bed in the room and found that it was infested with the little buggers!!! I then checked everyone else's bed in the room and they had them too. Nice. I went back down stairs and asked to change rooms. They treated me like I was a martian, but moved me to another room. I checked my new bed and thankfully that was bed bug free. I also, just being nosey I guess, checked the others in the room and found that they had bed bugs too. I was quite lucky.

I met up with the person I was on the bus with and we went for a walk around Brisbane. We started off walking up what felt like a motorway to Chinatown and the valley. The valley is where all the bars and night clubs are. Chinatown has a lovely arch as gates to the town and inside where some lovely smaller buildings. We quickly found out that Chinatown is not that big. More a ChinaHamlet actually and we walked the row of restaurants in less than a minute!!!

After China Hamlet we headed to the southbank which is a park that has set in its grounds a number of attractions and is good for a stroll. We set off and walked over one of the many bridges crossing the Brisbane river. It was a lovely sunny day and it wasn't too hot. Perfect walking weather. The park has musuems, gallaries, a lagoon. sports arena and shopping centre thingy set around the grounds and it was a really nice walk stopping every so often to have a nose around some random structure. The Tibetan Peace pavilion was particularly ornate. The lagoon looked lovely and even had a real sand beach!!!!

After walking about for a few hours we decided to catch the ferry back to the city and have some food. We had McDonalds, of course, as that was the cheapest restaurant we could find in that part of town. After waiting for the sun to set we got on a catamaran and went for a tour of the city by night. The catamaran was full of commuters and I think that they thought we were a little weird as we ran around the front of the boat trying to get the best picture.

The next day I headed off to the Mount Kootha (I think that how is spelt?) Park and lookout. I caught the infrequent bus up to the park and the look out as it is way outside the city. The lookout was really good and the weather meant that you could see way past the city. I enquired about a walk down to the bottom so that I could look through the park and unfortunately the lady behind the counter at the lookout was no help as apparently she only worked there.

From the map she dusted off for me it looked like there was another bus stop at the bottom of one of the tracks and so i thought that I could catch the bus after i did a walk down.

I headed off down the steep walk and on the way walked around an aboriginal artworks walk. The works weren't that well signed posted and so I only saw six out of the ten works - I couldn't find the others??? To be honest they weren't that spectacular, nor was the narrative that great to give the pieces any meaning, so i'm not going to loose any sleep over that!!!

I found my way out of the never ending BBQ park that was at the bottom of the trail and found what I was hoping was the road with the bus stop on it. I walked up and down that road trying to find it but to no avail. The road was in the middle of nowhere and it was too far to walk back into town. I was basically stuck. I walked off the road and heard a bus thunder past the road and so i thought bingo, bus's do come down this road after all and thought I'd wait and hail a bus as it passes. I waited for half an hour and thought that maybe this wasn't such a good idea and so headed off down a side road and to my horror i heard another bus speeding down the main road i had just left. Bugger. I went back to the main road demoralised and waited another half an hour.

This time i saw the bus coming and picked a good spot for the bus to pull over into and hailed the bus. The bus driver just looked at me and kept on going???? I was so shocked at this point i started talk to myself.

I thought I better go for help as i didn't have enough rations to last the night. It was getting late and the last back into town was going to leave in less than half an hour. I couldn't walk back to the top of the look out because: a) it was crazy steep and b) there now wasn't enough time. So i found a street with some houses on it, just up the main road. They were nice houses and they must have been expensive due to the view they must of had. I tried one house but no one was home. The next one i tried, a lady in an apron (obviously doing some baking, as one does in the afternoon) and told me that the bus stop was a 15 minute walk down a side road. Well i am furious with the Mount Kootha or whatever the hell its called as the map is so badly wrong - it shows the bus stop in totally the wrong place!!!! I eventually found the bus stop and the bus came a few minutes later. The bus was strangely decorated inside with lots of bunting and stickers of Australian rules football stars??? I got on and almost got back off after taking a lot inside as it looked like someone had nicked a bus and was trying to lure kids aboard with all the homemade decorations!!!

The bus was going back up to the lookout (typical) and so I had to go back up, wait for the driver to have a break before he headed back into town. By the time I got back to the hostel, which was around 5pm, I was feeling emotional, knackered and hungry!!

I had arranged to go out to the local comedy club in the evening and so I hastily got ready and turned up late. The comedy club was a 30 minute ferry ride away on Kangaroo point. We found it with the help of a kind women. Lucky she helped us otherwise I'd probably still be there now looking for it. It was tucked away in a housing block. How random. The evening was really funny and the host was actually more funny than the acts themselves. The Australians do love to bash the British though. Being outnumbered, hundreds to just two we kept quiet. After getting the ferry back we went to the club that is on the basement floor of our hostel. After downing god knows how many shooters, we had a bit of a dance - although at that point I wasn't in control of my limbs, and headed to our rooms at around 3am.

The next day I had an horrific hangover, but I needed to get the last of my jabs for JE. Probably not the best idea to get the gabs with a hangover. Wouldn't recommend that to anyone.

The next day I was flying to Alice springs and so I spent the evening packing and re-packing my bag.

I had an early flight to Alice the next morning and so I was hoping for a good nights sleep. The rest of my corridor didn't seem to agree and decided to have a corridor party. This was in the face of the signs on every available board in the hostel that said that no noise after 9pm UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. They set up a nice little music system in the corridor and were parting the night away, what felt like just outside my door. I must have had an hours sleep max. I checked out to find why no one had bothered to stop the party. It was because the staff were parting themselves and actually people were running around reception at 6 in the morning drunk out of their heads throwing stuff at each other. I didn't have time to care at that point and so headed towards the train station to catch my train to the airport.

The flight to Alice took three hours and was pretty smooth sailing. I landed and then waited for the hostel staff member called, and i quote, "Kitty Cat", to come and pick me up and take me to the hostel. After finding me she said that we had to wait for the next flight to come in before we could leave and so i spent my first hour in Alice, sat in the back of a van waiting.

After getting to the hostel I was told that the tour I had booked with the hostel wasn't running!!! I only had one day in Alice before I was supposed to go on this tour and then straight after I was booked onto another tour. She said that there was no problem and that she would arrange for me to go on a competitor's tour. I was a bit shocked but it seemed okay as I would still be able to do a tour of the outback which was the whole reason I had flown to Alice in the first place!!

I had a walk around Alice and decided very quickly that I didn't like it. It was really depressing and I couldn't work out what was happening with the Aboriginals. On the high street, an aboriginal man came over to me and offered to sell me a painting at an astronomical price. After i said no politely, he demanded money in an agressive way?? I walked away. I saw loads other just sitting around on the parks, I wasn't sure what they were doing. Others were getting drunk by the base of the look out and I saw one man being taken away by ambulance after he collapsed in what looked like a drunken incident. All in all I wasn't sure what to make of the town. I headed up to the lookout and walked past the broken bottles that were all the way along the foot path. The view was good and it was getting hot. I headed back to my hostel and avoided the hundreds of used condoms that littered the streets. I didn't go out that night as Alice is the murder capital of Australia and LP doen't recommend going out at night, except in a taxi!!!!

Noosa

Beach
Beach from along the board walk
Gum tree
One of the many bays surrounding the national park
Another bay
View of Noosa from the lookout
Sunset on the beach
Beach at sunset

Beach at sunset
Beach at sunset

Beach at sunset

Noosa is around 2 hours south of Rainbow beach. Noosa is much bigger and more touristy. Noosa is the name for a number of settlements around the Noosa river. I was staying just by the bus terminal (which is also a stones throw from the beach and main shopping street) in a HI. The building is actually quite old (by Australian standards) and was on stilts midway up a steep hill. The place was really nice if a little cramped. I only had a day there and so I planned my day with precision.

Noosa is an upmarket seaside town. Older Australians and families spend time here and Noosa is convinent for Brissie. The town was refreshing different from the other towns I stopped at on my way down from Cairns. The scene was party bars or millions of young people on the streets but more wine bars and restaurants. The main street also had many art and arty shops, lots of fashion house outlets and lots of jewellery shops.

My first activity for the day was to have a sleep on the beautiful beach. The sand was lovely and fine and the beach was really wide. I dozed for an hour before heading into the National Park.

Rainbow Beach

Coloured sands on the cliff next to the beach
Closeup
Heavy rainfall
Sulphur crested cockatoos

My next stop was rainbow beach. It is a very small town about 2 hours from Hervey Bay. I had booked a couple of days here relax on the beach. The colours sands are supposed to be amazing and awe inspiring (Lonely Planet).

I got into Rainbow beach quite late. Settled into my room and started to chat to everyone in there. Little did I know that the town basically shut down at 8pm and my gibber-gabber meant that everyone missed the restaurants. It was therefore cereal for tea!!!

The weather over the two days I was in Rainbow beach was pretty bad. I spent some of the afternoon on the first day on the beach although it was cold and there were cars constantly driving past (beach is a highway like Fraser Island's beaches).

The next day it rained constantly. It was just rain but torrential style rain that even bent up the gutters around the hostel!!!

The hostel room was really nice and we even had a balcony. There were sulphur crested cockatoos nesting in the palm trees out side the windows and so every morning there was squawking outside.

Before getting back on the bus to head to Noosa the bus driver pulls out some didgeridoos and we all had a go at playing. I was really useless and couldn't even make a sound!!! How embarrassing.

4x4 safari on fraser island

Fraser island in the distance
Indian head

Camp on the first night
Pinnacles
Wreck

Eastern Beach that ran the whole length of the island
Wreck
Eli creek

Eli creek
Lake Wabby from the lookout
Lake Wabby

Sunset the second night
Team photo on the beach where we camped the second night
The dingo outside our van at Eurong

Team photo in front of the largest tree on the island
Lizard
A kookaburra that wasn't afraid of people and was eating the crumbs from our table

Lake Mackenzie
Lake Mackenzie
The beach surrounding Lake Mackenzie

Lake Mackenzie
Our team name
Lake Mackenzie

Group photo in the back of the car
Roads on Fraser Island
Group photoView from the island towards the mainland
Sunset as we were on the ferry back to the mainland
The cat that lives on the ferry and climbs all over (and in) the cars

Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island. It’s a long thin island off the coast of Southern Queensland. It claimed that it contains more sand than the Sahara Desert??? With my Whitsunday Island cruise I booked a three day 4x4 safari around Fraser Island. The company puts you into cars with up to 10 other people. Lots of backpackers do the Fraser Island trip and I had heard lots of good stories about the trip.

The way my itinerary had worked out I had a few days slack in Hervey bay (Departure point for the trip) before the trip. I asked as soon as I arrived at Hervey bay if I could do it the next day. I didn’t fancy spending two days in a quite town where there isn’t much going on. To my total surprise, it was okay!!! I was shocked as usually Australian companies are quite strict! The way things turned out I was going to be in a car with three people I mad met off the Oz Experience.

We met really early the next day to sign contracts and meet everyone on the car. There was going to be three cars leaving that morning, each with 10 people. In my group was a group of three English girls and a Dutch girl, who were all travelling together, the group of three English people that I knew from the bus, a German and Dutch guy who were travelling together and me. Everyone seemed really nice.

As soon as we had watched the safe travel film and signed contracts we were off. First stop was to kit out our 4x4 van with tents, a stove, eskies (cool boxes), etc etc. This was a total “The Generation Game” affair with teams racing to fold up tents, pack the vans in small groups etc. There was even motivational clapping. Bizarre. Fully packed we got a map and headed to the supermarket to buy our food for the trip. We had made a list beforehand which made the shopping real easy. All in all we had to put in au$15 each!! (about 6 pound). This was a total bargain considering we had cereals, burgers, sausages, pasta and vegetables, biscuits crisp etc etc. One of the other groups spent au$300 on theirs!!!! How we laughed.

After leaving the supermarket we were then on our own!!! We had to find our way over to the ferry terminal so that we could get across to the island. This was fairly straight forward and everyone was in high spirits. We broke out the alcohol and had a celebratory drink!!! The ferry trip was pretty straight forward and although dolphins live in the water between the island and the mainland, we didn’t see any.

The island has many “roads” that crisscross the island. There are no street lights and the signage on the island is poor and so we were told not to drive at night. The beaches on the island are also designated highways and we could drive on them between 10am and 4 pm. We could only drive when the tide was out and there was enough wet sand that was firm enough for the tyres. We therefore had to plan our itinerary around these constraints. We had a suggested itinerary but this just listed places and not times.

We had to drive across the island to the east coast and then drive along the beach to Indian head. There we were supposed to camp for the night. The plan was to get there before it got dark (around 5:30ish). The drive across the island was bumpy to say the least and the “roads” are just paths of flattened sand that are as wide as a single car. Our first hair raising experience was when we came across another 4x4 coming the other way. Both cars had to drive up the side of the “road” to let the other cross. Because all the equipment and food in the car is stored in the top compartment of the car, it makes the car very top heavy. I had heard stories of cars tipping over on the island. When we passed the other car we went up on one side (the side I was sat) and I felt the car tipping. Apparently I let out a blood curdling scream as I could see the car crashing over onto the other car!!!! We passed okay but it was a scary experience. We had to leave a joint au$10,000 deposit with the hire company and we would have each lost au$1000 if the car had tipped. Phew. All was okay and we continued to make our way around the island.

We finally made our way to the beach. It was already 2pm and we only had a few hours of safe driving time to drive up the beach and find our camping spot. The beach was lovely and wide and all along the way we are passing other cars. We were warned to look out for wash outs on the beach. This is were a river flows out to sea and washes the sand on the beach out to sea making a little channel that can be set deep into the sand. We were told to watch out for Eli creek in particular.

We were all chatting away and getting to know each other. Someone had brought some speakers for an i-pod and so we were all singing along to the occasional song when a good one came on. All of a sudden the front of the car dipped down and everyone slid to the front of the car and then the back of the car dropped and bumped back. Everyone was thrown upwards. As I was at the back I felt the bump the most and smacked by head against the top of the car. I also had a can of bourbon and coke (pre-mixed cans are so handy by the way) and this went everywhere as I tried to cover the top with my finger!! We stopped and realized that we had speed over Eli creek at 80km per hour!!! My head was aching and I had a lump on my head for the rest of the day!!! I was not impressed. Crazy Dutch driver!!!

We slowed down at that point and made Indian head just before we timed out. We had a brief look and also a look at the nearly Champagne pools before we decided we needed to move. Due to the time we decided that it was too risky to drive on the beach (we didn’t want to get stuck in the soft sand up the beach) and so we headed for a nearby camp site and hoped that there was somewhere to stay there. We were told though that we couldn’t camp at camp sites without paying for a pitch (and often these were booked weeks in advance).

We found the camp site and as we expected we couldn’t camp there. We were stuck as it was now getting dark and we couldn’t go on the beach. We headed down a road off the campsite and hoped that we could find a small spot on the beach to pitch our three tents. We were surprised to see a long stretch of tents along the side of the beach. As it turned out there was a fishing competition on the island and a load of aussies had pitched tents along the beach and further down the beach they had left their boats and cars. The beach was fairly wide at this point. This part of the beach was still part of the camp site though and so we continued to drive through it hoping that we could tack on the end. We got to the end and the beach just stopped. Luckily some aussies came out to our car and said that they knew some people that had paid for some spots and that they weren’t going to be here until the next day and so they let us stay on the empty stops!!! Result. They were really nice people and didn’t mind that our tents were going to surround their tent (although their tent was more like a moveable house, complete with generator).

The other two cars had followed us down to the beach and so they were also lucky as they camped with us. All in all we had 9 tents with 30 people. We were close to a toilet and showers and we really lucked out with the spot. We started to get our camp set and split the group into setting up tents and making the food (which was a BBQ). The food was yum and after a few drinks we joined the other two cars around some lights and drank the night away. It was really weird as it felt really late but in fact it was only 2am when we all headed off to bed. The aussies joined us for a while and we had a good evening in the end.

The next day we got up early and headed back to champagne pools and Indian head to spend some time there until we could drive on the beach. Champagne pools are so named as they are pools in the rocks on the tide line, When the tide comes in it splashes over and through the special holey rocks into the pools and foams like champagne bubbles. The pools are really nice to just float the time away. We spent at least an hour there and then headed off back down the beach towards the centre of the island. We stopped off at a wreck that had washed up on the island and also at Eli creek where you could float down the river and be washed into the sea. (We spotted the wash out this time!). We akso stopped at the pinnacles which were cliffs made of coloured sands. The weather was gorgeous and everyone was having a good time.

Our next stop was at one of the many freshwater perched lakes on the island, Lake Wabby. The lake was set amongst sand dunes (unsurprisingly) and forest. The lake was bright green due to the algae living in the lake and was absolutely freezing. You could roll down the side of the dune into the lake!!! The Dutch guy did this at least ten times!!!! No one wanted to leave but we had to find somewhere to camp.

We were told to camp somewhere on the beach near Eurong. We had tried to coordinate with the other two cars so that we could all meet up again and camp together, We found Eurong pretty late in the day and so we had to find somewhere quick. We settled on a spot just off the beach behind a dune. There was no sign of the others and so we would be camping alone. The spot was pretty remote and there wasn’t anyone else for a fair while.
We would be using the bush to go to the loo from now on!!

As we were putting the tents up it started to rain!!!! We were cooking pasta and so it didn’t matter if the table got wet. The food turned out to be really good and we all tucked in. After packing all the dirty dishes and pans into a box for washing the next day we got down to some drinking and some drinking games. It was still early when the rain started to bucket down. We all rushed into the car and continued to play drinking games in the back of the car, all crammed in. There wasn’t much room even during the day when everything was packed away but with all out stuff crammed in the back to keep it dry we were really like sardines in a tin. We played some really funny drinking games and everyone said that they had had a really good night. We all turned in after peeing in the pitch black bush with a torch in our mouths looking for Dingoes.

Dingoes live in the wild on Fraser Island and after some clever people started to feed them (because they naturally look skinny) Dingoes now approach people expecting food. A few years ago they approached a few kids and pulled one away and killed the poor boy. Since then there has been spot fines for anyone feeding a dingo. We were all on the look out for dingoes (as they are essentially large hungry wild dogs) and they apparently are attacked to the sent of women? We had heard some howling that night in the dark and so we knew dingoes were around. When we woke up the next morning the girls said that they were awoken in the night by the sounds of the dingoes rustling outside their tent and we saw paw prints around the camp where they had been looking for our food!!

The next day we packed up and headed for Lake MacKenzie. Lake MacKenzie is a beautiful fresh water lake with white sounds surrounding it. Our first stop though was at Eurong to dump the rubbish. Whilst there a dingo came right up to the parked car and tried to grab our dust bin bags. I spotted it and jumped in the car with the bags. The dingo didn’t move for about 15 minutes and passing cars stopped to take pictures.

En route to lake MacKenzie we stopped at a forest and found the islands largest tree. It was so large that it took five people holding hands to surround the trees circumference!! Pretty impressive considering the tree had its roots in mostly sand!!! We found lake around lunch time and had a few hours there before we needed to get on the ferry. The lake was beautiful and crystal clear. The sand was nearly as white as snow and so fine that you can clean your jewellery with it!! We sunbathed and listened to some music before heading back to the ferry and back over to hervey bay.

All in all it was a really good trip. The rest of the people in the car (codenamed Dodgy dingoes) were a great laugh and everyone got on really well. It has been the highlight of my trip so far…..