Day 202 (Sunday 4th) - I Hate Brisbane
The rest of yesterday's journey was pretty dull - got on the bus, watched some Rome on my iPod, and rolled into Brisbane around midnight. I then went to the Palace Embassy where I was staying, which turned out to be basically in a club. It is above the Embassy Pub, which was so incredibly loud that I couldn't sleep for ages.
Day 203 (Monday 5th) - Happy 22nd Birthday Marie!
I was up at 0530, in order to leave Brisbane at 0630, finally on the Oz Experience bus - it turns out it was the Adventure Tours bus that went past the bus stop while I was waiting yesterday. We went via the Glasshouse mountains with our guide who is allegedly called Frat, who gave us a brief history of the area according to Aboriginal creation stories. We then went on through to Mooloolaba, where I missed the Australia Zoo bus despite being assured I would make it by the lady on the phone from Oz Experience. Instead I went for an explore, walking all the way up to Maroochydore, and as well as notincing loads of nice beaches I saw an increible number of fast food outlets, and also loads of exercising people everywhere, and more people standing on their longboards paddling with kayaking oars. I arrived at the camera shop after a two hour walk to find it wasn't even open today, so I wandered back (which took just as long) and had a rather meagre dinner of avocados & ketchup, then went downstairs to find some guys with a PS2 playing Guitar Hero. I had a go and was crap, then went and played poker with them. I was glad when I lost, as Matt the manager was taking it really seriously and generally creating a slightly unpleasant atmosphere.
Day 204 (Tuesday 6th) - Australia Zoo
I was up and straight off to get the bus to Australia Zoo, full of much excitement. When I got there (equipped with a disposable camera) the first things I saw were Goannas and Komodo Dragons, followed by some enormous Saltwater Crocs. I headed to the Crocoseum for the morning show, which involved Snakes, Macaws, various colourful birds, and of course a massive Croc called Murray, who was fed in a very dangerous manner which involved holding bits of meat out the leaping back and dropping them into his snapping, lunging jaws. Also I petted some Kangaroos, saw some Echidna, Elephants, Tigers and a Wombat on a lead. Throughout the zoo one was constantly made aware that this was the Irwin's zoo, as there were constant pictures, statues and videos of Terri, Robert and Bindi (who had won a Logie award for her TV show the previous weekend. She said it was "going straight to the pool room, mate", which is a quote from The Castle - impressive for a 9 year old). Nothing wrong with this though, all in all I had a pretty good day, and was knackered by the end of it.
When I arrived back in Mooloolaba I managed to make it to the Sunshine Plaze while it was still open, and got myself a waterproof and shockproof Olympus camera, which should serve me well over the next few wet and sandy weeks. I met a Kiwi chap called Rob back at the hostel, and after a bit of calculating we decided it would be cheaper for us to go halves on a bottle of Bourbon and some coke than to buy a few beers each. This proved to be a somewhat bad decision, as after chatting some nonsense with some hot German twins we went out to a bar called Friday's, about which I can remember nothing whatsoever. Really, nothing. We quickly became separated and Rob was kicked out by the Police (as was everybody else, he hadn't been particularly bad) and I found my way home somehow. No more Bourbon for me, just beers would be wise I think.
Day 205 (Wednesday 7th) - Surfari
Rob and I awoke early enough to get breakfast, and then grabbed some boards and headed up to Maroochydore in his van to go for a surf. I was certainly still drunk, until I hit the water when the bad feelings subsided to be replaced by other bad feelings associated with being pummeled by waves. I only caught a few in the 2 or 3 hours we were out there, before retiring to the beach with a Domino's. We bumped into a few guys from the hostel, who were playing Aerobie on the beach. We quickly joined in and played for ages, until it was just Rob and I left playing. Sunset rolled around so we went back and Rob and I napped, as we had realised we had had a maximum of 5 hours sleep and needed a wee bit of rejuvenation. We headed out to try and buy a few beers for the evening, and ended up driving around for half an hour or so as all the bottle shops were inexplicably closed, before going to the bowls club across the road from the Hostel and picking up some takeaways. Everyone downstairs was playing poker, so we went up to our floor where the guys from the beach were playing Ring Of Fire, a far more entertaining card game. We played a round of this and a few other drinking games until our small supply of beer ran out, and everyone gradually dropped off to sleep until I found myself watching Seconds From Disaster with a girl called Jess asleep on my lap, so I decided it was time to call it a night.
Day 206 (Thursday 8th) - Mooloolaba-Rainbow Beach
Today started earlyish, as we (Irish Anita and I) were being picked up at half 9. This turned out to be more like 10, and when the driver arrived I was down as being picked up from somewhere else, didn't have my ticket (I was never issued one) and generally caused a lot of cafuffle. When we eventually got underway the trip to Rainbow beach was fairly uneventful - we stopped in Noosa for a little while, so I went and lay on the beach, and then we went straight to Rainbow Beach. The girl behind me on the bus was having a discussion with an American guy and a Canadian girl, which mainly consisted of her expounding ridiculous narrow-minded and borderline xenophobic viewpoints on various topics, mostly based on patent falsehoods. I couldn't be arsed to correct her though, as I think the other two people were humouring her rather than agreeing with or being persuaded by her. Rainbow beach seems nice, I have booked my 3 day Fraser Island Self-Drive Safari (by self I mean some of the other passengers, by the way) for Saturday, and I'm also booked onto a massive 10 sail tall ship for sailing around the Whitsunday Islands. The only problem is that the sodding Oz Experience bus (definitely a bad and expensive idea, one which I immediately regretted after the Byron debarcle) is booked pretty much solid for the dates I want to go - I am on the waiting list to leave on Wednesday, getting to Airlie Beach on Friday and starting my sailing on Saturday - fingers crossed. The trip should be pretty awesome, the ship is 106 years old and looks incredible.
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