Our time living in Brisbane

Brisbane - Home in Australia

Brisbane's skyline

During our year away we stayed in Brisbane for over 7 months and we managed to build a new life and at the same time explore Queensland and the rest of Australia. It wasn't always a walk in the park to begin with but was worth it and was a shame we had to leave in the end!

Our "Queenslander"

Bedroom: Better than a sweaty dorm room!

We had spent a week in a hostel which was long enough, and after Georgia bagged herself a job we went flat hunting in beautiful Brisbane. We found a double room just outside the city centre for a bargain $200 per week (£55 each and the min wage out here is £15 an hour- so think about it!). It wasn't exactly a luxury place but with all bills included and a 5 minute walk to the city centre it seemed like luxury after paying almost double in a dorm in a hostel! Our house was split into two sections with a downstairs and upstairs and for most of the time we were the only people living downstairs which meant we had our own living room, and bathroom for the first 5 months. It was literally like having our own place, all we have to do is go upstairs in the evening to use the kitchen.

Our share house

The house wasn't as glamorous and as good as it seemed, the front room would get flooded when a tropical storm battered Brisbane every month or so as there were cracks in the wall. The oven didn't work for about 3 months and the housing agency wasn't even bothered about it, not that I even went close to the oven in the 7 months as Georgia was chef!
We also had two Australian 18 year olds that claimed to be students living with us who were proper dirty and weird (I sound like a grumpy old man). When I mean dirty, they used to throw the pots and pans away in the bin to avoid washing them up!
Our small little garden was like a jungle with snakes, possums, rats (who often would like to come in and pay us a visit) but the parrots that lived in our garden made up for it. It was almost weird to see parrots in the wild, especially in a small city centre garden and not in a zoo. I much preferred the parrots in the garden to having pigeons and cats in the garden back home.
In Australia, there wasn't no cats really and me and Georgia just jumped to the conclusion that the snakes eat them which makes sense?
The last couple of months we had an Iranian man move in who was studying who seemed a genuine nice person although there was a few cultural differences we had to agree on.


Jobs

In Brisbane we had 3 jobs each in 7 months which was probably about average for someone with a working holiday visa.
Georgia's three jobs were all located in Brisbane city centre in hospitality usually involving making baguettes and salads for the city workers but was often part time work about 20-25 hours a week. Whilst Georgia was working she decided maybe she should look for another job to get more hours and money so she applied for a cleaning job online on Gumtree which was for one day a week. When she made the phone call the man was requesting if she was young fit and healthy and he needed someone to help clean whilst he was renevating a house and his wife was pregnant so couldn't help out. Georgia wasn't totally sure about how genuine it was and she was right! I was laughing at the time and still, I was on the computer and found an advert from the same man but instead this time he changed it to "topless cleaner" and for some reason Georgia was no longer interested? I told her she should do it and she would get money but there was no convincing her!
Georgia had a bit of a rough time when it came to jobs in Australia, she left the first catering company after being racially abused and picked on by fat old australian women, how can they be racist when their parents or grandparents would have been immigrants themselves? Her second job was just a trial for a South African couple who sounded mental and her third company dumped her without any notice. In the end I employed her as my personal chef and she took up the offer :)

When I first arrived in Brisbane I couldn't believe my luck and got a job at the Ashes selling radio headsets and more importantly got paid to watch the cricket! I met a couple of people there who I became friends with and enjoyed the banter with the Australians especially thinking that England were going to smash them in the Ashes again. We was only required to work for the first 3 days out of 4 so me and Georgia decided to have a day out at the cricket even though England were losing. I was a bit sneaky and used the work entrance that I had been using the previous four days and even wore my uniform whilst Georgia went through the public entrance. It was part of a cunning plan to sneak 14 cans of beer into the ground so we didn't have to spend £4 on a small 3% beer all through the day. The game itself was a bit boring as Australia destroyed England, the best part was probably the hail storm that turned the cricket pitch into a white field! Cricket stopped due to ice! We sat with the "Barmy Army" England fans which was a laugh singing the usually convicts songs and singing "God save YOUR Queen"

One of the trucks James worked with

Anyways, back to the job hunting, I managed to find a job at a cafe as my CV may have been slightly exaggerated in the fact that I mentioned I had worked in a bar and worked in the hospitality sector all my life....well I did do 2 shifts as a barman when I was 18, so not a complete lie. The cafe was run by a young Chinese couple who constantly looked over my shoulder and was paying me below the minimum wage and was actually useless serving food as I didn't know what half the menu was! Anything was better than doing farm work in the outback in the 40C heat though.
On the off chance I applied for a job that looked interesting and something I studied a bit about at university and managed to get offered an interview which surprised me. A lot of employers would immediately not even bother looking at your job application once they knew we only had a working holiday visa as we could only work for one employer for a maximum of one month. I got offered the job after impressing in the interview ans started as a Fleet Allocator for a haulage company that transported shipping containers. I was in charge of around 15 Aussie and Kiwi truckies, half the time it was like looking after children when they had tantrums but the pay was good and I actually enjoyed it most of the time. In the end they wanted me to stay and offered me a sponsorship for four years but I turned it down as it was time to go back to "Pommie" land


Things to do in Brisbane and the Gold Coast

On the Gold Coast there were no less than 5 theme parks in which we managed to go to 3 of them. Warner Bros Movie World, Seaworld and Wet 'n' Wild that kept us occupied for a few weekends....Georgia even got to meet Bugs Bunny.

 

Surfers Paradise: Not a nice area according to Aussies!

Weirdly enough Brisbane didn't actually have a beach, you kind of just assume that everywhere in Australia does! Although they do have one in the local park which is different.
To go to the beach we had to go down to the Gold Coast which was a hour or so away and a lot of people referred it to where "Bogans" hang out which is the Australian equivalent to chavs. Looking at that picture does that look like a Chavvy place, Surfer's Paradise isn't exactly Dagenham Heathway is it? The problem with Australians is that they don't know how lucky they are! Surfers Paradise seemed more like America than Australia was often described as Florida to many people we met along the way! Beach, bars and restaurants, whats there not to like?
Further along the coast there was just endless beaches and we even tried playing barefoot bowls. The requirement in England to play bowls is usually that you have to be over 90 years old but Australians love playing a bowls in the sun whilst having a "Barbee". I think we slighlty embarrassed ourselves playing bowls as most of the balls went off the green or heading towards other peoples games. To be fair, Georgia was quite good and beat me easily which to this day is still hard for me to admit as I'm clearly not competitive.

We visited a zoo type place and was called the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which primarily looked after koalas, kangaroos and other types of wildlife you find down under. In that picture Georgia is completely petrified and they may look nice but they stink. Well it was worth the photo opportunity! There was a kangaroo field where you was able to feed and pet the kangaroos which was good although some were bigger than me! Apart from the 2 million Chinese people that were there on a tour group it was pretty good.
I managed to get a close up experience of some Aussie wildlife when I was walking back from work to the station when I heard some rustling in the grass. I turned back to notice I just walked straight past a 5ft snake! I hallucinated every time I walked home after work since that day!

Brisbane also has it's own brewery in which you can have a tour around but it nowhere near as good at the Guinness Brewery Tour in Dublin or the Heineken Brewery Tour in Amsterdam.

Mount Coot-Tha was also a favourite place for us which gave us an a amazing view of Brisbane and enjoyed the walks on top of the the mountain. We don't pretend to be professional hikers so we took the bus up and walked down to save us from passing out.

As mentioned earlier, there were no beaches in Brisbane but there was a park with a man made beach. It was a few minutes walk from our house and is such a good idea but most of the time it was so busy! Nine months of the year Brisbane is above 25C so it makes sense to build a beach and a swimming pool in a park I suppose but not sure if they anything else like this in the world, maybe someone can tell me? I was happy with just a paddling pool twice a year in the garden when I was a kid!

Beach within a park!

Brisbane has plenty of markets and we visit one near our house almost every Saturday , where we buy all of fruit and Veg for cheaper than going to one of the big supermakets. We have also enjoyed visiting the food markets here and having a range of food from all over the world. You name it we have had it. We both really enjoy the markets out here, much better than anything we have in England. There was a market that was made from old shipping containers and were converted to little food stalls which was a clever idea.

Australians are very patriotic so we decided to join in when it was Australia day when everyone has the day off work and gives people an excuse to have a beer and a BBQ, or in our case a foam party! Australia also have a day for ANZAC day which is a memorial day for the fallen soldiers in the world wars. It's good that Australia is so patriotic and think England should follow suit and have St.George's Day and Remembrance Day as bank holidays

Restaurants- We have visited some beautiful restaurants over the last 7 months living here, our favourites have been The Greek restaurant in the West End that does amazing garlic prawns and warm bread, The Indian which is the best Indian we have ever had, and last but not least the German Bier Cafe that does really good German food and 1 litre biers! We have ate in many places but these are definitely our top three!

Christmas was a strange day we had already enjoyed our day whilst everyone else was still sleeping. I made a huge roast dinner and just my luck the oven broke my luckily I had it all under control haha. Having a huge roast dinner perhaps wasn't the best idea as it was 34C, but we enjoyed ourselves. We spent boxing day at a Beach where we ate the chocolate that had been sent from home ( out here the chocolate just doesn't taste the same). New Years Eve we went out for a meal with our flat mates had a few drinks then went watch to watch the Fireworks on the South Bank.

We had such an enjoyable 7 months in Brisbane and not having to live out of a suitcase and in dorms but enjoyed the city most of all. It's not as touristy as Sydney and Melbourne but I think Brisbane is a lot nicer to live in as it's in Queensland they don't really get a winter! Also with the Gold Coast on Brisbane's doorstep there is so much to do! It obviously takes a few weeks finding somewhere to live and finding a job but it's definitely worth it to anyone thinking of doing a working holiday in Australia!!! :)