|Brisbane|

My temporary plan was to stay in Brisbane for a couple of month to earn some money for my ongoing journey. But after three weeks of sickness and staying in bed I just started to explore the city and surroundings, went out at night and met new people. Eventually I spent six weeks in Brisbane. I worked in the hostel for my accommodation to save at least some money. For one week of free accommodation I had to work 15 hours. We were eight people in the cleaning team and the shifts were divided among us. The first shift started at 6.30am until 9am, the main shift from 10am to 3pm, the supporter shift from 11am to 1.30pm as well as the evening shift from 4 to 6.30pm. Our tasks were to prepare the beds, clean the rooms, the kitchen, the rooftop as well as the hallways. The hostel was a really nice place to stay for a while because it was a small one and almost everybody knew everybody – so pretty familiar. Almost every evening was some entertainment like barbeques, party nights, wine and cheese evenings or pub-crawls.

Brisbane is actually a really nice city with beautiful areas. My hostel was in the Northwest of Brisbane close to the river with a beautiful view over the city. My favorite part of Brisbane was the lagoon at south bank, which is a public pool area where you can relax and chill out all-day long. I also enjoyed the Botanic Garden, Roma Street Parkland and the Kangaroo Point. My favorite area of Brisbane was West-end with some nice cafés, little shops and live music in the evenings.

One weekend I’ve spent on Stradbroke island with a friend and we had an amazing time there because it was whale season and when we were sitting next to the coast we spotted so many whales, dolphins as well as a Manta. It was so amazing to see these big creatures jumping and playing around in the sea.

I’ve been on another day trip with two friends Markus and Annica to the Gold Coast and the Springbrook National Park where we visited a natural bridge and a glowworm cave but unfortunately we couldn’t stayed until darkness because Annica had to be at Surfers Paradise to go on with her journey. So Markus and me went back to Brisbane – it was really nice to go out of the city at least for one day.

However, after a while I had the feeling to move on so I spontaneously decided to look for a car even if I didn’t planned to buy one in Australia. But after I’ve stayed in Brisbane for so long I needed to leave the city, explore some new places and meet new people. So I visited several cars before I found one and finally bought, which took me about two weeks. So I started to look for some travel mates that wanna join me on my way up to Cairns. Actually I wanted to find two people from other countries than Germany but it was impossible 😀 I wrote an English add on Facebook and just Germans were interested. So finally I decided to travel with two Germans Maike and Jason. I also found a group that wanted to go on Bribie Island for a weeked to drive some offroad tracks and I decided to join to make like a test ride wtih my car and see how it goes with my new travelmates