Brisbane

BRISSY Brisbane our next destination, a place we was unsure about, before arriving in Australia I had heard some good things about Brisbane, but a lot of backpackers have said that it isn't great, it was on our schedule and we had a hostel voucher from the company we booked our tours from so we made the trip. It wasn't far from Surfers and we arrived in Brisbane at around 3pm, the hostel itself was located in the business district of the city and only a short walk from the bus station so within 15-20mins we was there, the hostel was called "Base Central" 1 of 3 base hostels in Brisbane, the best way to describe where we was staying is 'dirty and run down' it was an absolute joke, I honestly do not know how health and safety have ever passed it as safe to open. The smell was shocking, giant damp patches from top to bottom, large plasterboard holes in the ceiling, and sockets hanging off the walls with cables showing just to name a few examples. It wasn't great, but it was very cheap, we checked in and walked upto the 2nd floor to our dorm, we thought it couldn't gets any worse then we walked into our room, and was welcomed by the worst B.O smell coming from an over weight man half naked hiding behind a sheet on his bunk, we looked at each other and laughed. The smell was so bad almost toxic, we thought we would ask for another room, and sure enough we was moved to the 3rd floor, our next room was a lot smaller and also staying was 2 young lads from Sweden and 2 Irish men around 30, they were all really friendly and we spend abit of time chatting. 

We was getting hungry so headed out of the hostels for dinner, although the hostel was manky the location was perfect, we walked literally 2mins down the street and into the centre of the city, we walked through the shops had a browse then ate at a chicken chain "Oporto" not bad fast food and it filled a hole. We headed back onto the streets and to place everyone talks about when talking about Brisbane, "Southbank" an area south of the river that runs through the city, It's most famously known for the man made sand beach that sits literally off the river, it was so strange sitting at beach in the middle of a city surrounded by big buildings and a river, we sat for a while and took a few pictures, then headed to a street just behind and found a chocolate resturant, where you can have fondues etc, you can imagine Lisa's face being a chocolate lover and we was straight in there looking at the menu, we didn't go for anything major and just got a couple of pots of melted chocolate, and to be fair they where so nice, we carried on walking a found random deck chairs sitting just under a line of Palm trees, so we sat for around 30mins just relaxing, soon after we headed back into the centre to take a look at Christmas themed windows that were being displayed in a Aussie department store called "Meyer" the first real sign of Christmas since we had been in Australia. With not much else to do we walked back to the hostel to chill, we had a chat with the people in our room then everyone went to sleep, the next day we was up early to catch the first greyhound to Noosa. 

From what I saw of Brisbane, I liked it, quite a modern city with and nice river running through, and we really liked Southbank, there is obviously so much more to see but only having one night we didn't have enough time to see it all, but I'm sure it won't be the last time we visit Brisbane.