New Lodgings

We finally realised that Somewhere to Stay was not quite the cheapest place around and while pay day is Thursday we decided to tighten our belts a bit and try and save some cash - hopefully resulting in an even better 5.5 days holiday at the end of our trip. So I spent much of yesterday calling various hostels and inns and getting quotes.

Did anyone else not know that the Bledisloe Cup was being played in Briz Vegas last night? Anyhow, it turned out that last night was a bit night for Brisbane with two football matches, the opening night of A Dolls House and the inaugural Brisbane Festival Fringe Theatre so cheap decent accommodation is like hens teeth.

Today we finally decided on a $120 per week fully self-contained apartment. You may have noted the use of past tense there. We checked out of our lodgings, taxied to the apartments to be greeted by no one. We even wandered around the building. We tried to call the managers but they were't answering. In their defence they were sounding pretty crook. Anyhow we ended up chatting with one of the people staying there who we knew from the hostel we'd just checked out of (they were in the check out queue before us). She said that if we couldn't get hold of them we should probably move on because they just checked in and chose between the two available rooms. The room they picked was apparently in poor condition and they were in the process of scrubbing it down. They waited 1 hour for someone to let them in and if they were us they'd just slip away. We decided that having spent 30 minutes looking for someone to let us in that this might be the right idea.

In true movie style when we were standing on the kurb it started to drizzle. There had been sunshine just moments earlier! We hailed a taxi and headed on to the next place Valley Verandas where we're staying now. It's such a cozy little place! It's costing us $100 less per week than the previous place and although it's a share bathroom the bathroom's quite lovely. The shower door is broken so it floods a little in there but the wonderful gloriously hot showers make up for it. We've got a double room with a private balcony overlooking their outdoor garden area. There's a great and clean wardrobe, TV and (Gene's pretty excited about this) a DVD player. We finally got to watch the end of the Dr Who episode where Rose goes back to 1987 to meet her Dad.

We're now on the other side of Brisbane to where we were previously, North instead of South. Much closer to China town - we ate lunch there. China town also seems to be the adult shop district which was a little odd. The random shops seem to fit in there though and there's City Safe surveillance cameras about. It seems that there may be a few more up hills on the ride home but no quite as severe as the one leading up to Somewhere to Stay.

Tomorrow we're going to head down to the Gold Coast, Mermaid Beach to be specific. Hopefully the weather will be on our side!