Australia: Crikey! Brisbane

Bright and early on Monday morning we made our way to Australia Zoo, the late Steve Irwin’s legacy. We had a fun day wandering around seeing all the Aussie animals. You could feed the kangaroos or have your picture taken with various different animals that the keepers brought out around the park during the day. Steve Irwin seems to be still alive and well there as there are pictures of him and videos of him everywhere you go.

From there we made the short trip on down to Brisbane and found our Aussie mate Steph’s house. We met Steph in 2006 when we went paddling in Uganda! We’d kept in touch enough to know she was still in Brisbane and thankfully she was happy to have us to stay for a few days. We all ended up staying up a lot later than usual each night catching up on the last couple of years and talking about more recent things!

While we were there we spent one day seeing around the city. It turned out to be Melbourne Cup Day and we were surprised to see lots of people getting dressed up in their finery to celebrate the race so far away from the track. It is a big night out across the country apparently. Steph didn’t really know much about it though! I think she has much more interest in paddling than horses, or night’s out for that matter! That night she treated us to some authentic Asian cuisine, which turned out to be really tasty. It was also fun making real spring rolls by hand. I might need a bit more practice at that!

The next day we went to the Wet’n’Wild Theme Park, in the rain… There were fabulous slides there which we stuck for as long as we could before giving in to the cold. It’s worth a trip, but maybe when the weather is a bit better! Back in the warm car again we drove over to see the famous Gold Coast. We stopped at Surfers Paradise, which wasn’t looking so much like a paradise due to the rain. It seemed much more like a beach with lots of high rise hotels and apartments overlooking it. We decided that having seen it now, we could leave and not have to go back again!

That night Steph continued her culinary education by treating us to something properly Australian, kangaroo steaks. These apparently had to be eaten quite rare, so while Seán was looking around for a defibrillator to get it going again, I tucked in. They were pretty rare to be fair to Seán though! Quite a strong gamey taste to it though.

Our trip in Australia had so far been quite different to New Zealand. We only had the Lonely Planet to guide us and were following the same route as all the other tourists. Steph changed our trip around by telling us about all the places she likes to go that were anywhere near our intended route, for which we were very grateful. And so, with her notes in hand, we set off south again, only this time going inland and off the beaten tourist trail.