brizzy fo shizzy

everything good i had to say about australia was almost reduced to nothing by the two days that followed airlie beach. two long days of driving between northern queensland and brisbane with nothing but boring brush after brush. i yearned for one of the animal crossing signs to pay off, for a koala or kangaroo to come hopping into our path out of nowhere. our car may have been totaled but it would have at least offered some excitement. also, let me just take this opportunity to give a click of my tongue to the caravan park operators of this country: $30 to park our camper in a gravel parking lot without the use of any kind of hookups? gimmeafreakinbreak. basically paying all that money for a hot shower and the opportunity to pay $10/hr for shitty wifi.

i won't try to sugar coat things for you readers. what happens when you put two friends with international differences in a camper for long stretches of time and things stop being polite and start getting real? you bet your ass you get the real world. for the most part jamie and i get along swimmingly. we crack jokes. we drink beers. we sing a long to sing-a-longs. we fart in front of one another. we toss a frisbee. but those long stretches…they turn petty little wrist slaps into tombstone piledrivers. the worst was when we finally made it brisbane but had no idea what to do with our camper. there were no parks in city limits and the most affordable campground was a good 20 minutes out of town by car and felt like a proper trailer park. it was another long day of driving and we were at wits ends. things were said that probably shouldn't have been. glances were held far too long. nostrils flared to their maximum. etc etc. thank god for mcdonalds and their free wifi! we were able to find a hostel in city limits that had their own car park and so we said so long deliverance and hello to two cots and a hot (shower).

after that terrible dry stretch brisbane was exactly, exactly, exactly what we needed. an actual city! with things to do! man, i can't even explain how much of an oasis brisbane seemed after those podunk camper parks. and to top it off brisbane is an excellent city – the two nights we spent there have probably been my favorite so far, with the first night being a hard to knock top contender for the rest of the trip. brisbane, aka. brizzy, is a city of modest proportions however it controls the most landmass of any of the major cities in australia. the city proper is probably slightly larger than cincinnati if you include northern kentucky as being part of it, and like cincinnati, brisbane is situated on a beautiful river front. brisbane river, however, cuts through the landscape much more dramatically than the ohio, creating a rugged gorge between the halves of the city. jamie kept commenting how much it reminded him of a smaller london, probably because it had its own south bank, even featuring a brisbane ferris wheel similar to, but much smaller than, the london eye.

our first night we mostly hung out around our hostel in the trendy fortitude valley area, or just the valley as the locals call it. in the valley you can find all sorts of bars, restaurants and venues. we began the evening just walking around and eventually slipping into a bar called glass. to start things off right jamie had a 15 year old irish whiskey and i had a $9 bottle of beer. us gentlemen had started our engines. after our warm ups we were loitering about when jamie noticed a sign on an otherwise inconspicuous entryway. the sign said that tonight the black bear lodge was having the red deer festival launch party. it also said free. we weren't sure if that meant free entry to those involved or free entry to the public but we decided to test the limits of the word. up the stairs we showed our id's to a lady sitting at a table with a list but she didn't seem too bothered by who we were and if we were on it. we were obviously there in the early stages as there was only a handful of people but we got a drink and soon more people filed in. eventually a food tray made its way around and we happily partook. as we were drinking and hovering around the freebies a photographer approached us and asked if he could take our picture. we obliged and you can find us moving and shaking online at this far-too-hip website (3rd picture over). after this sudden increase in exposure we thought it best to move grounds so we left and looked for something new.

eventually we found a group of people hanging about in an open space behind a building and we decided to join them. the building turned out to be the brisbane modern art center and they were apparently have some kind of performance art. we weren't sure what it was about but we did notice they were giving away free wine so we decided to shimmy up to the bar and see what was playing. i don't claim to understand all forms of art but i give it my best. if it's something i don't understand then i assume its because the artist wants to challenge the way you're thinking about whatever it is you don't quite get. and ultimately i think that the meaning of art is in however it speaks to you. that being said this was mostly bullshit. picture a room and in that room a spotlight. and under that spotlight a snare drum with some leaves on top of it. around the drum are some other musical instruments along with some more leaves and twigs and such. the performance starts and a man picks up two twigs while another man starts rubbing some glass cylinders to produce a noise like when you rub the rim of a fine wine glass. while the glass noise is happening the man with the twigs starts playing the drums with the leaves on it with the twigs. not exactly like you might imagine a drummer to play them but holding them exactly perpendicular to the drums and sort of tapping the drums with the tops of the twigs. later he would go on to play the guitar with some toothpicks and a giant leaf. they were fortunately saved from their over-seriousness by a guy – who was obviously high – in the front row giving color commentary to the whole thing.

watching modern art works up an appetite so we followed up the interpretive strumming with some dumplings from harajuku gyoza. they were actually really good but were kind of ruined by how much screaming was going on inside the restaurant. not screaming from the patrons but by the staff who had a unique yell for any number of transactions. in the event someone ordered sake, for example, the designated sake girl would come over, yell something about sake, and then pour out the shots. this was a hit i guess because i heard her yell the same thing no less than 5 times while we were eating.

stomachs full we head off again and this time we found some live music at a place called ric's. ric's was one of your token hip hangouts with an outdoor beer garden and christmas lights strung up and skinny bartenders and what not. the weird part was the live music, which you'd figure would be put in the largest part of the venue, was shoved up in front where the smallest number of people could sit. luckily, i guess, most of the kids weren't interested so we watched a small two piece from melbourne, red x, put on what was essentially a private show. and because that wasn't enough we ended the night at a final bar called the bowery which featured an extensive whiskey collection and their own four piece jazz band. we walked into their rendition of cannonball adderley's "mercy, mercy, mercy" and stayed for the set. we got a slice of pizza and then headed back to the hostel and thus ended our first night in brizzy.

the second day was slightly less entertaining. we started the day walking around the south bank and checking out the lagoon, which yes, obviously exists. i'm starting to wonder if all cities in australia have them or if it's just queensland because of their yearly temperate weather. we'll probably get our first chance to find out in byron bay. anyway, brizzy's south bank is very similar to london's south bank even down to the concrete style of the theaters and museums. i decided about half way through the day that i wanted to head back to the hostel to work on getting my website ready for job hunting but we planned on meeting later to check out the west end of town. the west end is supposedly the bohemian side of town with some major music venues and bars so i was looking forward to it. unfortunately i think we had used up most of our funds and energy the night before so after walking around a bit and having a beer we decided to head back.

the rest i'm going to speed through because it's probably better illustrated in the photos below anyway. the following day we took the camper just outside of brisbane to the lone pine koala sanctuary. it is the largest koala reservation in the world but they have more than just koalas - oh yes - they have kangaroos and emus and platypuses and dingos and even a cassowary. the kangaroos were particularly fun because you could just walk out among them and give them a scratch or whatever, as you can see from the photos below.

after the sanctuary we made our way down to the world's famous gold coast. the gold coast is a massive stretch of beach that extends down just south of brisbane and features some world class surfing. it reminded me a bit of busan as the waterfront is crowded by massive sky rises and there were koreans everywhere. what makes the coast good for surfing makes it a poor beach for swimming and lounging however as there were only pockets here and there for swimming and the wind was so strong sand blew in your face if you tried to lay down and enjoy the sun.

our last two days in queensland were spent inland at springbrook and lamington national parks. these parks are situated in lower queensland/upper new south wales' green mountains and feature both tropical rain forests and large airy grasslands, not to mention countless hiking trails to waterfalls and overlooks. the ride up into lamington alone was stunning, if not a little hairy, as you followed a narrow road up the side of the mountain, many times sharing one lane between two directions of traffic. i decided to enjoy it despite being in a big clunky camper. we did some hikes in both spots, saw some waterfalls, hung out with some birds…at lamington we noticed that there were tiny little pellet turds all over the campsite and later that night i found out they were from little wallabies that came there at dusk to graze. there were at least 15 of them hopping about all around us. it was pretty dark though so i didn't want to disturb them with a flash. you'll just have to take my word for it. the next day we drove out the same way we came in and eventually cut south across an old scenic road made by the local lions club into new south wales. at this point we're about halfway through our journey and only one state down.

one last small anecdote: the $15 foot/soccer ball we were playing with on mission beach lasted all of one day before i managed to put a splinter in it and flatten it. at airlie beach i bought a $5 frisbee to replace it and we've had it ever since. best investment of the trip.

one of several pedestrian thoroughfares in brisbane, most of which are lined with shops and cafes

the brisbane wheel, aka. the brizzy whizzy

from the free water taxi

the lone pine koala sanctuary

"selfie" #1

four pairs of legs??

"selfie" #2

whoa!

shy cassowary

surfer's paradise on the gold coast

waterfall under a natural bridge in springbrook national park

overlook, zoomed out

overlook, zoomed in - you can see surfer's paradise

stalking

twin falls, springbrook, from behind

from in front - you can see the path behind it

friendly birds in lamington

we went on a jungle canopy walk, which is a boardwalk above the rainforest ground. at one point there was a set of ladders that went to two different overlooks – one was an additional 25 m above surface and the other 30 meters. i only went up the first ladder as the second one was a straight 90 degree climb up the side of a tree. 

this was just the first ladder

and this is the boardwalk