Zoo wouldn’t want to go here

Whilst we have seen a lot of koalas in the wild, we wanted to get up close and cuddly with one. There were two main choices, Alma Park Zoo and Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Australia Zoo being a little out of our price range. We ended up settling on Alma Park as although it was a little further away, there were more animals to see. You know those times when you think you’ve made a really good choice and you couldn’t be more wrong. This was one of those times. The first problem was getting there after stepping off the train. It was a 2km walk from the station which wasn’t too bad for us as we walk most places anyway but it wasn’t the most pleasant of things and there was no pavement.

On our arriving we paid the fee (with student discount obviously) to get in and walked down to the cafe to find out about the advertised complimentary photo cuddling a koala. After speaking to the surly staff we were somewhat surprised to discover that there were no free photos and we’d have to pay $20 a photo- not mentioned anywhere in the brochure we’d seen. $20 for a piece of paper was too much for us so our main purpose had been left in tatters. We tried to rescue the day and did get to stroke a snake, a croc and a koala. We went around seeing the rest of the animals and feeding a lot of them which was fun but in no way made up for the blatant profiteering. We also found out not to mess with kangaroos either! One emu got too close and was sent flying by a swift kick. All in all whilst some bits were fun we left the zoo disappointed for the trek back to the station for the train back to the house we were staying at only to find there were no more trains running! It was a bit of a wait for the bus but we made it back eventually.

Speaking of our house we still haven’t spoken about our Couchsurfing hosts yet! We’re staying in a sharehouse with four housemates; Alesha, Fazzy, Johnny and Phil. Sadly most of the guys had plans but we had an amazing time with Johnny, even going out to a drum ‘n’ bass night in the ‘Valley.’ It was something new for the both of us and we both had an awesome night. Our last sight of Brisbane was from their veranda, cooking up a barbeque, overlooking the city skyline- best view from a student house ever!

Rex’s Rules of the Road

• Don’t be fooled by false advertising, go with your gut instinct or at least do research if unsure.

• We don’t know whether it’s Brissie nights out in general or just D ‘n’ B but everyone was really nice with no pushing, shoving or fighting.

• Looking for a proper kebab on the mean streets of Oz- forget it! All you get is a lettuce in a tortilla with some particles of meat.

• Check out Rach's review of Alma Park Zoo.