More Brisbane

Here's a summary of the rest of our time spent in Brisbane.

Queensland Culture

Being the capital of Queensland, Brisbane has lots to offer in terms of culture. We visited the Cultural Centre, where all the state museums, galleries and libraries are. The Queensland Musuem had all the usual stuff on Queensland history, etc. The most interesting exhibit was on animals, where there was an emormous height chart where you could compare your size to the size of a vast array of animals.

The most fun was had at the library's 'Game On' exhibition, which charts the history of video games, from the earliest games in the 1960s to the present. Basically Thomas and I played video games for three and a half hours! They had all the classics from Pong to Sonic and Doom to Space Invaders. The exhibition is also running in the UK, so all you video game freaks keep and eye out for this one! We also visited the state galleries, where there was some weird modern art.

Chinatown, The Valley and more churches

Along with some people we met at our hostel, Thomas and I visited Chinatown, in The Valley area of the city, where there was supposed to be a really good market. Turns out that we walked all the way there in the Brisbane heat to find a few stalls selling stuff no one in their right minds would ever want to buy, but we meade up for this by ating some good Asian food.

Looking at churches again, we went to St Johns Cathedral. It's an interesting church in that it was only completed before Christmas last year, so it had a very new feel about it.

We went out for the night to The Valley, which supposedly is the place to go out in Brisbane. However, hundreds of people in tight spaces in the humid Brisbane climate meant none of us found it very comfortable. If I'd have wanted to get soaked, I woud've gone swimming! Also, the bouncers here are weird. They seem to make up their dress codes as they go along, so much that one guy wasn't allowed into a club with his shirt on, so he turned it inside-out, and was then allowed in. But of course no dress code applied to the girls, who could get away with wearing basically nothing.

South Bank and Mount Cootha

Thomas and I explored South Bank, which is next to the Cultural Centre. It's Brisbane's modern and trendy zone, with cafes and such. But also they have some beautiful garden areas, relaxing walks by the river, and the Streets Beach, which is an outdoor free swimming pool and beach area right by the river. Once again I was impressed by what Brisbane had to offer. If I came to live in Australia, it would probably be either in Adelaide or in Brisbane.

Later that day we went to see Valkyrie, a film about one of the assassination attempts on Hitler. It was a very well done film and it has a superb cast, including Tom Cruise, Ken Branagh, Bill Nighy to name a few. Definitely worth seeing.

At about midnight Thomas myself and a two of the guys in our room (Livvy and Catherine) went drove up to Mount Cootha, where we had great views of the city in darkness, that is until the fog blocked the view. If we'd have got there 10 minutes later we would've been able to see nothing.

Australia Day

Yesterday (26th) was Australia Day, the national day for Australians to get out their Aussie flags and party. It's funny how Aussies celebrate the arrival of 700 British convicts to Sydney in 1788, which heralded the destruction of the Aborigines' way of life, as their national day, but like every event in a nation's history, it has been turned into a monumental celebration far removed from what actually happened. Nevertheless we celebrated the day as well by wearing Aussie flags and taking part in the festivities. There was plenty to see at the free events at South Bank. There were performances by local singers, actors and other groups, and the day culminated in a great fireworks display by the river. The best thing we saw were the numerous street performers walking around, such as these comic policeman acrobats, and human flies hovering around bins harrassing everyone who walked past. It was good fun overall. We spent most of the day sitting on the grass with Livvy, Catherine and Madeleine (our new friend from Canada).

Car and Photo Troubles

Poor Thomas has spent most of the time inbetween the above recovering the thousands of phots he accidentally deleted from his computer. Luckily he's been able to salvage most of the pictures he had, and any he's lost he'll be able to get from other people. He's been very lucky considering he thought he'd permanently lost everything. It's made me make sure I backup my photos more regularly!

Today our car was finally fixed by the local mechanic, and luckily there was nothing else wrong with it beyond what the mechanic had noted the other day. Now we have our roadworthy certificate and we'll be able to sell the car in Cairns!

Tomorrow (27th) we'll leave Brisbane and continue north. The next major things on our 'To See List' include Australia Zoo, Fraser and the Whitsunday Islands, and of course, the Great Barrier Reef. Keep checking the blog for future updates and tell everyone to look at it!