Today we flew to Brisbane and picked up our rental car at the airport. We were sitting in the car by half 2pm and we had exactly one hour to get to the Thai Consulate to apply for our visa before leaving Brisbane. We were armed with a very bad map provided by the rental company, absolutely no knowledge of Brisbane and frayed nerves. Add grid-locked traffic to the mix and you get a flavour of our afternoon. Matt was a trooper; he got us there with only two all-out shouting matches and eight minutes to spare. We were sooooo thankful to the Thai Consulate office for granting us 60 day visas in about 20 minutes. We didn't really have a destination in mind so we just drove north out of Brisbane into the Sunshine Coast. About an hour north of Bribane we began to see signs for the Australia Zoo (the Steve Irwin Zoo) so we decided last minute to see it first thing in the morning. Finding a (cheap) place to stay was a challenge because, for some reason, everyone in Australia was just now celebrating the Easter Holiday and most of the caravan parks were full. We eventually found a very comfortable motel (it happened to be the closest accommodation to the zoo) and the receptionist gave us an excellent dinner recommendation at the local country diner. We made it back to the room and settled in for the night to watch Australian reality TV. We got a really, really good laugh during the commercial break- a commercial came on advertising something (we did not know what yet) with quick snipets of various crimes/disasters; shootings, torrential floods, buildings on fire, high speed police car chases, riots, domestic violence etc. Matt and I were psyched, we thought it was an advertisement for the Australian version of "Cops". Turns out it was an advertisement for the local news station! We agreed to make a hasty retreat after the zoo visit.......
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