Brisbane

Unfortunately I had to leave Byron Bay as I had a trip to Australia Zoo on the Saturday. A word of advice to everyone; DO NOT BOOK DAY TRIPS THROUGH STA UK! They said that there would be other travellers and its a fairly big trip. This is not true, after having to walk 20 minutes to a pick up point at a fancy hotel it turned out I was the youngest person on the bus by about 5 decades. I was also the only one actually going to the zoo. Moral of the story - STA are liars. Anyway, regardless of looking like a billy no mates and having the ask the awkward "Excuse me can you please take a picture of me and the kangaroo", I had a pretty good day. The zoo is actually smaller than I imagined and there is a huuuge focus on crocodiles which is understandable as its Steve Irwin's zoo. There is a new Africa exhibition that has opened and the keepers brought some Cheetahs out for everyone to see. There was a really impressive South East Asia area which was home to some Elephants which could be hand fed by visitors and an excellent tiger show. The keepers had made some toys for the tigers and would throw them out into the water so the tigers would lunge after them and make a massive splash.
Brisbane has a south bank and a wheel just like London except this south bank also has a man made lagoon. We timed it right and managed to catch a really cool market with some fantastic jewellery and I bought some hippy pants which are the comfiest things ever!  One of the girls from Byron caught up with me which was lovely. We had a bit of an explore around the botanic gardens and then caught a free ferry down the river at sunset. The city looks gorgeous at dusk. The last day was spent trying to educate ourselves in the Museum of Brisbane. We also walked up to Fortitude Valley which was pretty disappointing as it was basically just cafés and shops.
Overall, Brisbane's quite nice. It'd be a cool place to live if you worked but I definitely think I prefer Sydney!
Xxx