Brisbane

Brisbane, while a very nice city in itself, is not my favorite city in the world. It is quite clean, but fairly busy for its size and it seemed there was not a whole lot to do. Mom, Matt, Layla and I were lost the first few hours in the city, not knowing what to do or where to go first. We ended up walking across the river onto the esplanade. There are some great views of the city, including the casino, which is lit up red at night. We rode the observation Ferris wheel, from which we were able to view the entire city. That night, we just crashed for the evening.
Our second day in the city, we walked around to see what there was to see in the daylight. We walked downtown to a street mall called Queen Street. This mall reminded me so much of the Hay Street and Murray Street Malls and made me think about Perth. This was about all that we did this day, unfortunately wasting much of the day.
The third day in Brisbane, we decided to get out of the city and visit Steve Irwin’s zoo, called Australia Zoo. Here, we watched a crocodile show put on by Terry, Bindi (aboriginal for ‘little girl’) and Bob Irwin. The show was quite neat, but I was glad to be seated in the stadium instead of in the pool with the croc!! He was a very large croc and a favorite of the trainers for his ferocity. Also, they put on a free-flight bird show that was absolutely awesome! Imagine parrots, cockatoos, and other ‘exotic’ birds flying “at will” around the stadium until ‘recalled’ by their trainers. We feed and petted kangaroos, watched Asian elephants up close and personal, petted koala, and were blown away by the Sumatran tiger show (they swim!!!). We also saw wombats (Mom’s fav), otters, wallabies, dingoes, camels, cassowaries (weird birds!), and many other crocs and lizards.
We stopped at a fresh local fruit market on the way back to Brisbane – pineapple, strawberries, and macadamia nuts – then asked to be dropped off at our favorite restaurant – the Criterion – for an early evening dinner. Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel and crashed for the evening.
The next day, we all decided to walk to the esplanade again, just to see some sights we had missed in the days prior. We came across some markets, but just walked through them since they were about the same as other market places we had been to on this trip. We called it an early night, after walking a few kilometers back to the hostel. Later that night, a few friends from Curtin university, Livia, Jaymes, Aurelian, and a few other, popped into the hostel to visit with Matt and I for a few minutes before heading out to the clubs. It was nice to see them for the last time before heading home.