Current Mood: Playful

We’re here, the main portion of the Trip – Australia!!!  Sadly we had to say goodbye to Alex, our travelling bud of three weeks, but I think she really wanted to get home and see her mum and her fella Andy so I hope the flight and everything went well. 

We had an awesome flight over with Qantas, for a start my knees weren’t battling with my chin for who has right of way and the entertainment was onpar with a Multiplex.  Caught up on a few films, watched the Brits beat the Australians in the World Cup and then something on Boxing greats!  Before I knew it they were turning it off for landing – no sleep, no boredom the whole flight.

Getting into Australia meant having all our bags checked by sniffer dogs and customs officers, but it’s more or less routine here so didn’t take long.  We jumped on a bus with a cool dude who Emma thought looked like Steve Irwin (he was Australian and Blonde!), he was very amusing – just a quick example but this Chinese woman came over and asked him something, I was sitting next to him and asked him if he knew what she just said, his reply “F*ck knows, just smile, say yes and agree!”.

The hostel is excellent, highly recommend Tinbillys for anyone else who goes travelling (Thanks Nessy and Claire for the recommendation!), we chucked our stuff in the room and had a quick browse around Brisbane while Scatt caught up on her sleep.  Some brilliant shops around including one called Off Yer Tree, went in and next thing ya know they’ve only gone and put a stud through my lip –  never even noticed them sneaking it in!  You should see where Emma’s had hers…  (only joking Mandy!)

Went down to the Tinbillys bar for some grub and got talking to a load of people, travelling here is so different from Thailand - everyone is so friendly and we ended up with a cool crowd on our table by the time the pub quiz started.  Our team – the Europeon All-Stars as we had a girl from Finland, one from Ireland and Alex our dorm mate from Belgium. 

The first round, general knowledge we sucked at and only got 6/10.  Next round which was Sport we got a stonking 9/10 only losing out on the “Who lost the 2004 FA Cup Final?” – no friggin idea!  Even with the wrong question though we came first and won a round of shots for the group and another Jug of beer.  Final round – Music and we were stonking, got every question right and ended up joint winners with another group of lads (Thanks to James the master of books, for the answer to a question in the quiz!) …  Tinbillys solution – a downing competition, the winner walking off with a $50 Bar card…

I was voluntered by the group to go up and drink, now I can do bottles but never had to do pints before so was suitably nervous.  The other guy was scary and we clinked glasses, the DJ said go and up went the pint – 3 or 4 gulps later my pint was gone and the other guy was still only half way – Russell and the Horsham Rugby Team would be proud of me!

So we ended the evening with $50 worth of free drinks, so yet another jug or beer and 2 jugs of cocktails were ordered!  What an unbelievable start to Australia – tommorrow we’re off to Surfers!  Laters…