Looking for a bed

My flight from Sydney to Brisbane landed at around 19:35. After collecting my bags I decided it was time to find out how to get to the city centre. I got chatting to a local girl who told me that I'd just missed the last train so my best bet was a shuttle bus into the city. We walked up to the desk to book our tickets and when the lady at the counter asked me where I wanted dropped off I calmly responded that anywhere in the city centre would be fine as I hadn't booked a hostel yet.

She looked a little shocked.

Apparently she was under the impression that, although there are a great many hostels in Brisbane, there weren't many available beds. She suggested that I go to the tourist information desk in the airport and try and book a hostel immediately then book my bus once I had that sorted.

I took her advice, headed to the tourist info desk and asked the lady there if she could book me into a hostel. She said that the desk didn't book hostels, only hotels but showed me where I could find leaflets for hostels so I could phone them myself. She then offered a slightly sarcastic, "Good luck," the kind that told me that I might struggle to find a bed, but didn't really help matters.

I managed to collect leaflets for about ten different hostels and started systematically phoning them, asking if they had any free beds. After about half of them had knocked me back I started to become a little concerned.

At that point I decided to book my bus ticket and phone the remaining hostels from my mobile while waiting on the bus. Eventually I managed to find a bed at a place called Bunk, a fairly modern hostel in an are a called Fortitude Valley. Apparently 'The Valley' is nicknamed "The Las Vegas of Brisbane" although it's nothing close. There are more pubs, bars and clubs there than anywhere else in the city centre though.

Bunk website

After getting getting of the bus at the Roma Street Transit Centre in the CBD I had about a twenty five minute walk with all my bags to reach the hostel so by the time I got there I was more than hhappy to just K.O. on my bed.

I spent Thursday 6th July walking around the city, trying to get a feel for the place. Immediately I noticed two things: that the weather was nicer than Adelaide and that there were a lot of tall residential buildings in the city. In most of the other cities in Australia the majority of the skyscrapers have been office buildings but in Brisbane the majority of the tall buildings are hotels or apartments.

I went out on the Friday night with Aude, a french girl from my room, and Frank, a Scottish/English guy from my room. We had a few drinks in Birdee Num Nums, the bar connected to the hostel, then headed out into the Valley to a few other bars before finishing the night in a club called Family. It was a pretty cool place with great lighting and some really cool bars, including a literally cool bar that was covered in ice. It was just a pity the music was crap, or at least not to my taste. Too much repetitive bass, no singing.

Check out the Family website.