Day 67

Friday 7^th January 2011

Having decided to head to Brisbane we had to be up and out of the hostel by 8.30am. We got a free transfer to the bus station and jumped aboard a coach to Brisbane. The journey was fairly uneventful apart from the fact that it poured with rain the whole way. I got stuck into my book and Franky typed up the Fraser Island buts of the blog ready to post as soon as we got wifi again.

We arrived in Brisbane at 1.40pm and got a taxi to our apartment. The apartments are about 500 yards from the transit centre but:

-          we didn’t know that

-          our bags are bloody heavy

-          AND most importantly the insurance company are paying!!!

We checked in and were thrilled to check out our new pad. It’s on the 31st floor overlooking the Brisbane river so the views are amazing.

We have  floor to ceiling windows that pull all the way back onto balconies from both the lounge and bedroom. We have a full equipped kitchen complete with dishwasher AND in the bathroom we have a laundry centre with a washing machine and tumble drier!!!!

I couldn’t have been happier. Those of you who haven’t spent time trying to do laundry in Aussie hostels won’t understand the frustrations of firstly waiting for a washing machine to be available, then throwing all your clothes in to discover it’s only connected to the cold tap anyway and so nothing really gets clean. You then either have to sit and wait until the washing is finished (boring!) or run the risk of someone dumping all your freshly laundered (all be it not very clean clothes) on the floor the moment its finished because they want to use the machine. This washing machine had hot water, settings for different clothes types and everything.

Franky was equally delighted with the 50 inch flat screen TV, couch and huge fridge to chill the Becks that we’d been carrying since Byron Bay.

After running round and round the apartment like two excited cocker spaniels who had just been told it was time for walkies we decided to use all the facilities and have a night in. Now I know this isn’t the most obvious decision when you arrive in a brand new city on a Friday afternoon but that was what we really wanted to do – and it was still bloody raining anyway!

We headed out to do a grocery shop, stocked up the fridge and then both had a shower. This was the best shower we’d had since leaving Sydney – hot, powerful with no drunken Aussie teenagers having sex in it – some things didn’t make the blog from Byron Bay and I’m still quite scarred from the ordeal. And then we just vegged out all night. Yeah!

We had meatballs for tea – which Franky has been craving since about day 3 of the trip, a few beers and some red wine. Lovely!

Topped with some rether non-PC cheese!

Then we settled back on the couch and watched ‘My Boy Jack’ which is a film about Rudyard’s Kiplings son in the First World War – pretty good actually. I’d recommend you watch it if you get chance!

At 1.00am feeling a bit tipsy but totally relaxed we jumped into bed.