8/02/2026 Crikey, it's the Zoo

We were planning to head to the Zoo later in the week but since today (Sunday) was going to be the coolest (31c!!!) day until we leave, we decided to head North. This was going to be a thorough test of our abilities to read a timetable and get on the right train out of many.

First stop was a bus into the CBD and find some breakfast. Brisbane central closes down on the weekend, almost every cafe was closed. Luckily the one we walked past just off the bus turned out to be fantastic. The streets around the train station have kept their old Australian country town style.

  

Sugar n Spice was helmed by possibly the most pleasant man I have ever met. The coffee he made was exactly spot on, perfect. The butterscotch muffin was pretty damn good as well.

Breakfast of champions.

In front of the central train station is ANZAC Square and gardens. Leading from the square to the station is a passage filled with all sorts of information and side galleries with records and artefacts related to different wars. Australia does this so much better than New Zealand, they actually honour the past and sacrifices made. We kind of give it a prod with a toe once a year and have a mossy cenotaph in small towns. Not without significant problems, but relatively Australia has much more of a national identity and pride.

George Michael would have been happy with the style of the train station, it definitely had a tiled porcelain look to it. Happily it didn't smell like a public toilet, even if it looked like one.

Simple folk we are, used to one train going on one line, the fact there were many train services running off the one track caused a bit of nervous checking of apps and maps. As it turned out, the train arrived on time (yes the trains actually run here on weekends - Auckland trains are really a bit shit) and off we set for a 80 minute journey for 50c. The bus and train journey might have been 50c all up, I haven't quite worked that out yet. All I've been charged is one $3.50 holding fee for all our trips so far so it's a bit of a mystery.

 

As we worked our way North out of the city there are a variety of walls facing the line, and by the looks some pretty wild times are to be had. Otherwise, it's a completely unremarkable journey.

"The countryside". Mostly new developments and a lot of blue sunny skies. Gum tress, but no sign of snakes, kangaroos or anything else.

Going by these signs I'd be fine for a set, ticking four of the five boxes.

I guess we have missed the high season, we weren't exactly queuing up to get in. At $75 per ticket it's a bit pricey and they are leaning heavily on the Irwin name, both Steve but more so with Robert, Bindi and her husband heavily featuring all over the place. Terri seems to have very much taken a back seat, other than her presence in photos and mentioned in passing she wasn't a prominent as she used to be.

When we visited in 2010, the three of them were in the show but Terri was the main personality in the Zoo publicity.

It was a bit of a stinking hot day so a lot of the beasties were hiding in the shade, but those with pools in their enclosures alternated in the water and in the shade. The Zoo is based around the animal hospital so they end up with all sorts of different animals from all over. Not as random as the Museum of the Desert in Tucson having a stingray exhibit, but otters kind of stuck out a bit. It would be weird if Australia Zoo had stingrays, but not as weird as Tuscon having them.

Kimono Dragon - awesome lizard but a nasty, dirty bugger. He seemed to be happy with the heat.

This chap caused a bit of a scene with some young English tourists since he was sporting a startling pair of dangling gonads. "Look at the ball sack on that" I think was the phrase. Another of them wondered when it would start spinning around, and I glanced to see if she was joking but worryingly I couldn't tell.

There were a few dingoes around and they looked far too cuddly and nice to be going around taking babies and random tourists. 

Yeah, typical Australian stoned out of their minds and lazing about.

This one was a bit more photogenic and alert.

So I have decided that I will never go into the wilds with Louie, his identification of animals leaves a lot to be desired, and I am far too willing to believe him.

We walked past this chap and he said "that's just a concrete crocodile, fake." I took this at face value and carried on walking, but realised some others were taking photos of it. And back we went and yep, it was real. So on some future expedition we could be fooled into being eaten by a wild animal, thinking it was made of concrete.

They've made the kangaroo enclosure a lot bigger and more shaded, and from memory there are quite a few more kangaroos. It's a big area so it is by no means crowded.

This one was giving me the side eye and it took me a minute to click what was different about it.

Wisely I moved on to others, and we both got to give kangaroos scritches behind the ears. 

The Crocoseum show was without any of the Irwins but the format remained the same, birds charging around the area doing bird things. 

Thankfully for a zoom lens and fast shutter burst, you can play spot the birds.

Ferocious wild dingo doing exactly what it wanted to do and that was play in the water. I suspected this was a part of the show but it took a bit too long to get her to come out so it was definitely natural dog shenanegins.

 

The keeper called Bruce giving Murray lunch. Yes, they are nothing if not consistent in their names.

I hyped up the bone shaking *Crack* of the crocodile's jaw snapping shut we heard back in 2010, but Murray seems to be a bit on the quiet side which was a disappointment. That's a sound I will never forget.

What culinary delights awaited us at the five star cafe of Australia Zoo?

Views of the not-concrete crocodile ponds for a start. I wonder if any of the many Ibis have wandered too closely to a set of jaws in front of the dining public?

This is what awaited us. Tasty but flaccid chips and an okay pizza. Not much has changed in the past 15 years, other than the prices.

Elephant. No notes.

They have two here in a massive area. From my uninformed eye, it seems they give all the animals as much room to roam as practical, and it looks like it is much more than other Zoos I've been to.

 

I couldn't really hear the keeper doing the presentation, but I think this tiger is blind. It was doing weird things including reversing into the water.

On Bindi's Island you can walk amongst Lemurs, but you have to stay 2m away from them.

This is such a fantastic experience, just being able to be in the same space. The Zoo is all about creating a sense of caring about the animals and this is an effective way of doing this. So many different people were just standing there, completely engrossed in watching them up close.

Another common sight was staff doing work with the animals. Since most of them are there because they have had an injury, they need animal rehab to be able to animal things. This Echidna is blind, so the staff member was getting it used to having in close contact. That worm is not it's lunch, that is it's tongue!

Meercats - always fantastic.

As with everything, I learn the easy way right at the end. Today we learned there is a free shuttle bus that you can take to get around the Zoo. After two visits, some pretty damn sore feet and a lot of sweaty walking the revelation was made when we were just about to haul ass back to the front to catch the bus back to the train. The air conditioned ride was just luxury. 

Helpful hint - read the website of places you're going to go to. Don't be like David.

Still great, but still leaning very heavily on the cult of personality of the Irwins. It's a private business, they can do what they like and it seems to be working, but it is a bit much.

On the ride back to the train, probably the nicest road I've ever been on.

After a long train journey back, we took a walk through evening Brisbane. It's so different from Melbourne and Sydney, not a lot of places are open and there weren't many people about. A bit closer to the Queens Plaza area it livened up a bit, but otherwise things were quiet.

Not pictured were the bats flying about, screeching and squabbling, giving the church a very strange tone.

One of the list dinner places, this was not as it looked in the website photos. I was expecting a proper deli, but it was just a themed outlet. And they were out of so many things, we ended up getting a "classic" sub. 

Other than the overly spicy salami, this thing blew the socks off any Subway sandwich I've had. If we had this in Auckland, I would be here every day.

A quick walk up the street to the Town Hall and onto a bus back to the hotel. 

A big day, fantastic Zoo and so many cool animals! 

This holiday so far has been a lot more fun and interesting than Melbourne.
It has been very hot, especially today and we were pretty stuffed by the end of the Zoo. The heat and humidity is a lot but we have both enjoyed just being here. Easy to say when you're on holiday but we have a recent Melbourne visit to compare, and it is better here. 

Way fewer flies as well. I have literally seen three since Friday.

In summary after pretty much three days - Brisbane is great, even in the heat of February. I'm guessing it's not as humid as it could be but we are really enjoying it. Getting to sleep is really easy as well when you are on the move all day. Maybe I need one of those treadmill standing desks...

7/02/2026 Round the River

The day started off with a sleep in, at least it felt like a sleep in. Thanks to a weird bout of jet-lag that neither of us have experienced before, we woke up around 7am but it felt like 10.

With a plan to go to Mount Coot-tha we headed into the CBD for breakfast, because that was kind of in between. But not really. One more Reddit recommended (or was it warned on the Brisbane subreddit, I can't remember now) was on the cards - the Pancake Manor. What could go wrong.

Nothing heralds a classy fine dining experience than rubber armour on second hand mannequins.

The place was certainly in keeping with the theme, and it did kind of give off a Manor-ish vibe. Much like hair on the table-keep gave off pubic hair vibes. A brave choice for someone serving people food, add an element of doubt if anyone found a coarse wiry hair in their breakfast.

The serviettes promised perfection. No idea who this is supposed to be, but she's a lying idiot.

There were a few non-sweet fruit pancake versions, and bacon, egg, hash brown mix was the best combination that met my discerning palate.

The pancakes were good, plump and fluffy kind of ruined by the weirdly salty butter. And looking at this photo, even more weird is that the butter had started to melt by the time it arrived. And didn't melt any further. It was as if the solid cold butter but was added after the melted foamy butter. I guess they wanted it to look good. Maybe if they didn't fuck up the hash brown so badly it would have made a difference.

Just a mess, what the fuck were they thinking.

Bonus point to the place (god knows, they need it), it was clean and free of sticky tables. There was so much sugar on Louie's plate, and looking around the other tables there was so much ice-cream, syrup and caramelized fruit out that diabetes Australia ought to be picketing the place but everything was clean.

After breakfast, the Mount was kind of forgotten and we went for a look around the CBD area. They have a whole stack of the cool Australian stone buildings that are all over Sydney. I guess Melbourne has them but I don't really remember seeing any.

This Trypophobia inducing knob caught our attention and while we were being weirded out by it, we noticed there was a Chinese New Years stairs thing, which then led us to notice it lead up to the Sky Deck which is on our list. The Mount was definitely forgotten about by now. 

On the way we spotted these panels which supposedly represent the personality types according to the year you were born. Lets see... strength, well I have a strong profile viewed side-on. Reliability, yeah you can rely on me to point out when someone makes a dick of themselves, usually myself. Determination... does belligerent stubbornness count? 

Patient? No amount of clever word-play can mould that word into an intolerance of half-wits and fucknuckles. Achieves success through the shotgun approach, firing many ideas into play and crowing about those that work, hiding those that didn't. Yep, I'm dedicated and resilient to that concept.

It's like looking into a mirror.

Pretty great view from up here, apart from the dodgy old New Zealand tourists getting in the way.

This was a very weird feeling, but I was quite relieved to see that if I did break through a refreshing pool was waiting for me below.

One thing I've noticed is there is a bit of traffic around here on the main roads and all of it flows pretty well. I haven't seen anything that approaches the complete shambles that is Auckland. 

Our spot for a morning refresher. I did a vague check of my watch before I ordered an adult beverage before remembering it was a Saturday and I was on holiday. No idea what sort of cider it was, but Monteith's Crushed Apple Cider is still my favourite by far.

The Sky Deck goes around the front of the round building, with the glass floor directly above the gap. It's one of the most amazing buildings I've been in, with spectacular views and angles all over the place.

After the sky deck it was time to go bush. Or garden at least. A short walk took us to the City Botanic Gardens, which was promised a cross between a tropical rain forest and a Deep South bayou garden. Well my brain promised it to me by the looks of the trees on the outside. It was mostly lawns and big trees. Some dirt as well.

 

Loads of trees, I imagine the do well in the warm wet climate. Nothing seems to be dry here and there is a lot of water being used for watering grass and water features.

Crazy root tree and the path that many insane people run down. It was 32c and muggy as all get out. There was one creature wearing a jacket running past. What the hell? 

The next episode is without photos, but is remarkable for the first time I got on a Lime bicycle. That lasted for about 30 seconds, until Louie sliced open his finger trying to get the helmet out of the crazy lock contraption. Not being a boy scout, I didn't have any plasters in my bag so it wasn't really practical to go cycling with him dripping blood everywhere. And off we got and walked to the nearest pharmacy, which wasn't really near.

Irish Psychic. Not sure if this meant he tells you he sees potatoes in your future, or you have to tell him his future. Either way the cost of the 10 minute session was too high for my (checks notes) patience and honesty and I wasn't allowed to stay and annoy him.

Bagels for lunch, and poor Louie had to go through all the prompts and questions. I whipped out a "number 9, everything and peach iced tea" before she could even ask. Luckily Australians are far more adept at adapting when a customer doesn't follow the script, unlike their NY counterparts.

Louie's NYC bagel, none of the fillings had anything to do with New York. Shaved ham, lettuce, egg salad? The bagels were good though, not the horrible pretend "genuine" ones we get in NZ that are as tough as a boot.

For a change, we walked through South Bank again, this time along the arch way thing. Loads of shade thankfully now the sun was out in full force. Who would have thought it would be so hot here in February.

We ended up in front of the Brisbane sign and relaxed here for an hour or so. It was here we got to view first hand a class A Twat. I think he was doing some sort of exciting dynamic piece of Brisbane but the guy had the camera so close to him, and kept on whipping it around to whatever he was talking about that it will be impossible to watch. He was dressed up as a wannabe Steve Irwin or Russel Coight but without the talent or personality. He ended up trying to chat up a bunch of German girls and showing off his dancing moves. Just a complete car smash.

I'm pretty sure we were in the background of some of the video, and Louie wasn't happy about that, but I assured him nobody would ever see it.

I tried for a while to get a photo without anyone in it, and this is the best I could do without some Photoshop work.

This is definitely going through the "remove people" algorithm. One of my favourite shots of this afternoon.

Next stage was a ferry ride to Eat Street. An extortionate 50c for an hour ride down the Brisbane river. 

The thriving heart of the Brisbane CBD or something. Maybe just a couple of buildings.

This walkway puts our local one to shame, mostly because it isn't in the process of collapsing into the Orakei Basin.

On the way to Eat Street, not exactly the Gold Coast. This is a cheap cash-in on the program with a "guided" 10 minute tour through some merchandise.

Excellent cold drinks, non-alcoholic cocktails. They have a strange amount of dicking around with the more expensive ones. With "cans" they fill them up, then press the can lid on top, with the tab already opened. Why? And the jars is just silly. We went for good old fashioned plastic.

Arancini balls. Not great. Crunchy.

Eat Street is a bunch of food outlets in all sorts of little lanes and areas. Loads of people there and it was interesting watching all the different types of food go past. Pork lollypop was not for me.

They also had a pretty good band going, it really set the place going.

Chicken wings, damn good.

And so ends our first full day here. Really enjoying ourselves, loads of walking as usual (17,000+ steps each day so far), it's hot but not insufferable (yet).

On the ferry back, I spotted a lot of small black dots in the sky overhead. Bats! Big fuck-off bats.

Louie didn't believe me, because bats aren't that big and that many, and demanded proof. Thanks to the 10x zoom of my phone he was educated and somewhat alarmed. 

Evening on the river. We got off the ferry early and took a bus to see how that was. Pretty damn good as it turns out. There were a couple of guys from Translink on there but they got off somewhere around Fortitude Valley (can't think why they wouldn't be needed after there...).

Oh, what a surprise, the bus stop was just near the Gelato shop from yesterday. It would have been rude not to go in.

Berry pavlova again and Macadamia - just as good as the first time.

I'm not sure what we are up to tomorrow, any plans seem to get changed so I'm sure we will figure something out in the morning!