Oh dear god! I'm so glad to be out of Brisbane. I had such high hopes for the place and then found myself wanting nothing more then to escape it. OK, it's not as bad as I make it out to be. I just didn't have a great time while I was there. It's been the biggest low-light of my trip thus far and now I know never to go back for any reason.
My first screw over was the fact that the hostel was full and only had single rooms available. I had no choice but to either find a new hostel or dish out more money to pay for a single room. I suppose it's nice to have your own room to sleep in especially if I was going to try and get some action out here. 3 days there were spent exploring and waiting for my buddy Adam to get his butt up there from Byron Bay. I figured once he got there then things would be fun and we'd have a grand old time like we always do. The first day he was there I gave him a tour of the city the only way I knew he'd appreciate it, Through a pub crawl. We hit up 5 different pubs from about 2pm that day until whenever it was we stopped drinking. The general consensus between the two of us was that Brisbane sucked and we were only going to stay a few days.
One night two of his friends from England who happen to be living out near Brisbane came into town and we went out that night. It was a night of being thrown out of places cause one of his friends was only 17. It ended up okay because we found a place that didn't ID us and we became chums with one of the bar jockeys. In general it was an alright night.
The next morning some random super hot girl was on the roof and offered Adam and I a joint. I remembered my last experiences in the weed department and figured that if I wanted to seem presentable to this woman, then I had better not smoke anything. We talked for a bit and learned that she just goes around to random hostels and enjoys talking with the people, she's from Surfers Paradise and hated Brisbane as much as us. Good to see it's not just me.
Adam and I spent most of our time in the "Down under Bar" in the basement of the Palace Hotel(it's actually a hostel). On one of those nights he informed me that he had invited down a few of his roomies to drink with us. One of which was a Dutch girl named Iris who he was hoping to shag at some point. Iris and her friend Cloe joined us and then a bit later Adam's other roomie, Erthan, joined us and it was a party. The bar was packed and everyone was enjoying themselves. I kept scanning the room for good looking girls who looked available. At about 11pm two girls sat down at our table and I looked over at Adam and said "Bingo". I thought it wouldn't be too hard considering my recent string of luck since I had been in this country, but before I could get over to her another guy seemed to be trying his luck and this girl blew him off completely. Yikes, that was enough to scare me stupid and not try anything. Adam and Iris were bugging me to just try my luck anyways, but I kept refusing. Iris then took it into her own hands. She started talking with the two girls and found out that they were dutch as well, so the conversation soon changed languages from English to Dutch. This always scares me when girls start talking in another language and keep looking back at me. I don't know if I should smile, or turn away. After a few minutes of conversation between the two Iris told me to just start talking with her. So I went for it. I did the usual travellers questions to get to know her, and we seemed to be hitting it off pretty well. Until she started asking me if I believed her on anything she had told me so far, I didn't know what else to say but "are you giving me a reason not to believe you?" The only thing that seemed doubtful was that her name was Stoop. I think at some point I just lost interest and then she told me that it was nice to meet me and that she was going to find her friend...... I was stunned. It took me a minute just to process what had happened. I just got my first blow off in Oz. Sure I started to lose interest, but I was about to boat that bass and she did it to me before I could act. I can't complain I suppose. I went a solid Month and a Half with having my way with almost any woman I felt an extreme interest in. This was just a kick to the head that told me I'm not as smooth as I think I am.
The next day I decided I hate Brisbane even more then before and that I was going to make a run for it while I still could. I booked to leave on my bus the next day and spent my time sunbathing. Stupid Idea. I pretty much fell asleep in the sun and burnt my chest and stomach. Another point to Brisbane. In an effort to make my last night a bit better, Adam and I went in search of a bottle shop that wasn't a rip off. One doesn't exist in the center of Brisbane. We went back to the rooftop patio of the hostel and drank a lot until I had an awesome idea. Two Kiwi guys gave me an entire bottle of Vodka and I somehow drank it all in 20 minutes. I don't even like Vodka straight! For me, I can't remember finishing the bottle. I woke up sitting on the toilet, pants still up, no puke around me or anything. I felt drunk still. I walked back through the rooftop patio and layed down on a bench until a familiar figure from last night hovered above me. It was an American guy, Brett, who informed me of the previous nights antics. He told me that I'm now the most popular person at The Palace and that my buddy from England was looking after me last night. I checked my pockets and realized I didn't have my room key or my mobile phone on me and figured Adam would have it. I raced down to his room and beat on the door. No answer. Erthan came along soon afterwards and told me that Adam was around the hostel somewhere just not in the room. I went back to the roof to collect my thoughts, if it was possible at this stage. One of the guys who works at the palace saw me and remembered me and let me into my room. There I found everything I thought I was missing and a note from Adam saying 'I guess you won't be checking out today, Give me a call when you wake up." I checked the time on my mobile, it was 2pm. I missed my bus by about 3 hours. Time for sleep.
I woke up at around 5pm and gave Adam a call. He came up to my room and brought me food. He told me everything that happened. Apparently I was so drunk a few girls wanted to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital and get my stomach pumped. It took two of the biggest guys to carry me back to my room where Adam watched over me until about 9am. What a guy. This is why he's my best mate out here. At some point I had hit my head because I found blood on my pillow and the back of my head hurt like crazy. Around 6pm he said I should make an appearance on the rooftop. I came out and sure enough, Everyone knew who I was. Everyone was asking me if I was okay and how I was feeling. It was funny, I had gone from just a normal guy to instant superstar at the hostel (not in the most classy way or in any way that I would choose to do again in the future). I spent my night hearing how everyone thought I was just the funniest thing they had ever seen and how they were all impressed to hear from Adam that I didn't puke a single bit. I was now known as the Hardcore Canadian, and Brett said my name is now going to be a verb for getting drunk. That night he said "I'm going to get seriously Miked tonight." I was off drinking and smoking for the last 3 days I was there. Food didn't even taste that great. I get the shivers whenever I think of Vodka now.
I rebooked my bus and spent my last day taking in the sights and animals at the Koala Sanctuary with Adam, Iris and Erthan. Good fun, got to finally see a Koala, tons of birds with names I can't remember, a couple of Dingos and a Tasmanian Devil. In the evening Iris decided that we should go to the store, buy some stuff and just cook a big dinner for the 4 of us. That was quite the experience having Iris and Erthan argue over what they wanted. On the walk back from the store Adam notices Freja (my German fling) walking down the street with her friend. I would've walked right past her, I didn't even notice. He invited her out to join us for a few drinks tonight while her and I just stared at each other smiling and not saying a word. It was kind of awkward. That night on the rooftop where I was now famous I spent my time chatting to (yet another) German girl. I'm using the German that I have learned and applied it to ice breaking with German girls. It seemed to work in this case. Around this time Freja starts text messaging me apologizing for not saying anything to me today in the street and invited me out to china town to meet up with her for a drink. That's way too far for me to go so I had to decline. Instead I told her we would just meet up later when we both get the Cairns in the north. The text messages went back and forth asking me when I was leaving and if I had time before I left to see her. I was leaving at 11am the next day, so the trooper that she is got herself up and made her way downtown just to see me for an hour before I left for Airlie.
I suppose I couldn't have asked for anything more. I was able to see Freja again, and in all honesty I was thinking about her around that time. We talked about our travels and what we had done the last 2-3 weeks we hadn't seen each other and then talked about where we were going next. The hour flew by and all I wanted was one more to spend with her, but I had to go and get on my bus. We had our goodbye hug and she was on her way. I wasn't in any mood to make conversation with anyone on the bus at this time. I just kept to myself and listened to my music.
At our lunch stop I finally broke my silence and chatted with another Canadian girl and (surprise surprise) another German girl. They became my companions for the next bit until they were to get off in Hervey Bay. We stayed in Mooloolaba that night and left for Hervey in the morning. I was going straight through to Airlie so I bid farewell to them and waited until the bus filled up with more people to chat with. A cute girl got on and all I could think was (ching ching). I didn't make my move til much later in the day though. Our overnight stop was at a place called Bargara. Funnily enough, this cute girl was in the same room as I was and it was the perfect time to make my way in on conversation. Her name was Louise and she's from Denmark. We had some good fun chatting and I got to know another guy name Tgerred from the Netherlands.
That evening was a BBQ where a bunch of us just sat around drinking wine and chatting with a few other girls from the bus going south bound, while we were from the north bound bus. Nothing really happened between Louise and I for I think I was still thinking of Freja too much to really push too much on Louise. She was to get off in a nearby town and do fruit picking anyways. So the next morning I said my goodbyes to her and it was off to a ranch in a small city called Dingo.
That morning at the town of 1770 some people that I knew from my bus up from Sydney to Brisbane got back on. Lindsay, Richard, Julie and Rhiannon told me all about what they had done since I had last seen them. It was a fun reunion. Along the way we blew out a tire on our bus and had to pull over in the middle of nowhere. Our driver got the spare out and put it on but realized that the airbag that levels out the bus was now leaking. We all had to sit on the right hand side of the bus to even it out. Reminded me of that part in the movie Speed. We spent an hour replacing the tire. We got to our lunch stop where a guy came out and fixed up our buses spare tire and gave us a new one, but he couldn't fix the airbag, that had to be fixed in Rockhampton. That took almost 2 hours once we got there. The day was kind of a waste. We got to Dingo much later then expected.
The Dingo ranch was fun. It became a rivalry spot between the North and Southbound buses where we had drinking competitions and a tug-o-war competition as well. There was line dancing and more table dancing. In the morning we got to go on a tour of 45,000 acre ranch in the back of a truck which reminded me of one of those Safari trucks in Africa. We were able to try our hand at throwing boomerangs, Didgeridoo playing and cracking a stock whip. One girl had the chance to shoot a Winchester rifle. The guys weren't allowed to. Damn. It was a great day which ended in just a lot of driving to get us out to Airlie.
Airlie beach is a small place which reminds me of Byron Bay a lot. Not nearly as good though. The first night we went out to a bar called Morocco's which is right beside the hostel I'm staying at. Julie, Lindsay, Richard, Rhiannon and Eve joined us as well and ended up dragging me out to McDonalds at 2am for food. I can't stomach McDonalds so I didn't eat anything. They taught me this thing that they do whenever they go drinking, you hold up your fingers to describe how pissed you are. 1 finger means 10%, 2 is 20% and so on. It provides a lot of fun when people start to argue over how pissed they actually are. At this point I realized just how much fun I had been having since I left Brisbane. Which proved my point that it was a hell hole.
Yesterday I was exploring Airlie (not hard to do when it's only one big main street) and who do I happen to run into? My favourite German girl, Freja. Her plans to go to Rockhampton and then to the great keppel island fell through because of how expensive it was. Instead, her and her friend are going over to the Whitsunday islands to camp for a few days and then she's off to Cairns. I felt kind of awkward again meeting in the street, especially when she started to yell at her friend in German and then her friend stormed off. I felt like I had done something wrong by saying hello to them. It was only a quick meeting for I was getting uncomfortable and just made the excuse that I had things I had to do before I left, she did the same excuse.
Today is going to be another day of nothing. I think I'm going to lay around the pool and read my book, and then I leave tomorrow for Townsville/Magnetic Island, and after that I'm off to Cairns. Freja texted me asking me I'm going to be there, and I've told her only that I'll call her when I get there. I can only hope that the next time I see her, it's for an extended period of time.
