Its party time in the land of Oz! Got into Brisbane on saturday night after nine hours on the Greyhound. Believe me when I say that the buses are not designed for a guy my size, at every stop where we had even five minutes, I got out to try and get feeling back into my legs. Once in Brissy I wandered up the street from the transit center to my hostel, I think I need to dump some of my belongings, my backpack weighs a lot! If I want to do any kind of an extended hiking trip there will be some major modifications to what I have in my bag, essentials only!

But anyway, go to hostel and settled in, went up to the roof where the bar and the kitchen are and had the best burger since Canada. Met a few people and just spent the nights talking over a few drinks. Its one of the most interesting things about backpacking, you get to meet so many people from all over the world. Although to be honest, 95% of backpackers are either English or Irish, I have not met any other North Americans on my travels. I need to find me a Canadian and just talk for hours about the NHL or something, all this talk about rugby and AFL is getting old. 

Met up with my travel buddy Joe on Sunday afternoon, moved from the big party hostel to a small one in a residential area where there is a strict noise restriction. Its nice though, a change from the high energy vibe you get in the bigger hostels, here its all about relaxation. 

We didn’t really have a plan of what we were going to do when we got to Brisbane so we debated a few different things and decided on heading to Darwin. There is a chance that we will be working on a croc farm for a few days, that would be an experience! We are taking a rented campervan up there, we have 7 days to cover 3500 km. And a lot of that is just through remote barren desert/scrub bush so it could be pretty boring after we cross the great dividing range somewhere west of Rockhampton Queensland. I don’t really know what to expect or what I’ll need along the way but we’ll figure it out. Can’t wait to get to out of the city, I have spent so much money in three days its stupid! But I have the rest of the week paid for unless we do some touristy things, oh and I need to buy a sleeping bag for the trip. We were going to go to the Koala Sanctuary today but it started raining right when we were on our way to catch the bus so we decided we would wait until the end of the week when the forecast is more sunny. Since its raining we should have a lot of time to plan our road trip, good thing Joe is here, I would be quite lost without this guy. He has more contacts around the country than I do, which is what you need when you’re a backpacker on a limited budget. So thats me for now and we’ll see how this trip turns out!