Day 7 Back to BrisbaneI

I woke at 4.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I took a photo of the dawn but it is not very good.

After breakfast we went to the Australia Zoo shop to but a magnet, we have collected so many on this trip and then we set off back to Brisbane.

I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to find the car hire place with one way streets etc but with the help of the 'Yellow Pages' map we got back with no problems. Straight into a taxi and back to the same hotel we stayed in the first night. We had coffee in the bar and then set off sightseeing in Brisbane which is a lovely city. We went to Anzac Square and then onto the lovely cathedral which looks old but was only finished in 2001 although it was started in 1901! We then went down to the river and had lunch at a bar there with some very, very cold beer and sat watching the world go by. We walked along to the Botanical Gardens and had a look around there and an ice cream. We both felt very tired and when you consider what we had done over the last few days, not to mention the heat, it was no wonder.

We went back to the hotel and I closed my eyes for a little five minute nap. Nearly three hours later I woke thinking we could go for a cup of tea and Jon said it was ten past six! So it was shower and out for dinner.

We stopped for a drink at the Stamford Plaza Hotel on the river and watched lots of big bats flying around.We then found a very nice place further along the river called Jade Buddha and it was an open air place serving Asian/Vietnamese/Indonesian food and we had a lovely meal served to us by a very jovial Irish waiter! Duck spring rolls with lime chilli sauce to start followed by lamb strips cooked with sugar snap peas and shallots in a coconut spicy sauce.

Then it was back to the hotel where we booked a 5.00 alarm call!!