Travel Journal: Part 26 (Brisbane)

This journal was written as a physical diary by me during my gap year. I am typing this up to share my gap year experience. At the beginning of travels I was 22. I travelled with a friend (Kieren) and anybody else involved will be introduced during the journal. For more details, check here.

To spend a year in Australia, we got working holiday visas. These allow up to 1 year of travel and work in Australia. Find more information here.

Check out the previous instalment here.

The Brisbane portion of the journal doesn’t always go day-by-day because I got a job to save up for future travels so I neglected the journal a bit. There will likely be less photos (sorry!).

1st May – 31st May 2018

May has been a busy month so I’ve missed an entire month of travel journal entries. I’ve mainly been working around 30 hours a week at the restaurant and 12 hours a week housekeeping at the hostel. I didn’t have a day off for 2 weeks at the start of May and I’ve only had 1 day off a week for the past 2 weeks. It’s worth it though because I’m saving a lot of money for further travels.

(a) Eagle Street Pier with view of The Customs House (the restaurant I worked in). (b) Botanical Gardens.

Other than work, May has actually been a great month though –

A lot of wine nights at The Guilty Rogue often followed by nights out at Down Under bar
Socialising with all the lovely people who also work at the hostel (Base Backpackers)
A lot of free drinks and some free

So here I’m going to go through the highlights of this month and all the stuff/people I don’t want to forget.

Moving to Room 10

Me and Kieren moved into the staff room (room 10) with Becky, Marianne and Eve. I hated it at first because both me and Kieren have top bunk. I got used to it quickly though and it’s such a great room! We originally had a load of milk crates as makeshift shelves to put our stuff in but these were recently replaced with actual wardrobes.

BBQ and Goon (17th May)

A lot of us had the same day off so we got a load of food and drink in and had a BBQ at Roma Street Parklands. It was such a lovely evening. We finished the night off at The Guilty Rogue and Jackie would not stop buying rounds. Ben was sick outside after a mix of 2 tequila shots and 2 sambuca shots.

BBQ at Roma Street Parklands (apologies for the terrible photo quality).

Down Under Nights

Down Under is the bar attached to Nomads hostel and we often go there after drinks at The Guilty Rogue. 1 night I had far too much wine and I don’t remember walking to Down Under. I do remember getting in, going straight to the toilets to vomit to the sound of Jackie and Monique singing Breaking Free on karaoke. I had to text Kieren asking him to come get me..

Another night, a group of us ended up singing 9 to 5 on karaoke (although Jackie actually used her corona bottle as a microphone).

Members of Base Crew Leaving

It was so sad because 4 people left on 3 consecutive days and I really them. Alex left on the 19th, Monique left on the 20th and Amber and Jackie left on the 21st. It felt very strange at first without them.

Base Crew (apologies for the terrible photo quality).

The Guilty Rogue

Monday – open mic night and $10 curry

Tuesday – musical bingo and $5 pizza

Wednesday – bar crawl

Thursday – acoustic karaoke

(Bonus: as staff we get 50% off drinks and 20% off food. This means a bottle of wine is $11).

Brisbane Fact File

Free concert in Town Hall on Tuesday at 12pm
Water dragons are all over Southbank (+ behind the bins at work)
Cockroaches are so much bigger in Queensland than Victoria
White ibis birds at everywhere – they’re found on the east coast in NSW and QLD
Southbank is the place to bee on a sunny day
The weather is a lot nicer than Melbourne
The name Lachlan is a very popular boys name (I’ve met 5 since I’ve been in Brisbane)