Due to my sudden apparent respiratory dysfunction,

and deprived of the week's planned aquatic adventures, I jumped on the coat-tails of Neil, Bryan and Chris as they ploughed a tourist furrow through Brisbane and its environs. First up on Tuesday was a prescient re-run of my introduction to Brisbane from three years ago: along the Brisbane River on the CityCat ferry, a wander through the manufactured (but pleasing) cultural epicentre of the South Bank* and then a drive up Mount Coot-tha. This time we stopped off at a trail that led through the woods to an abandoned (and wholly unsuccessful) gold mine shaft on the back slopes of the hill. Wending our way through the pseudo-bush, Neil displayed a borderline obsessive desire to find deadly spiders and a competing tendency to freak out at the merest suggestion of anything brushing exposed skin. Three quarters of an hour later, the collective paranoia of impending paralysis** or death propelled us out of the bush and back to civilization.

"What are the inhabitants of Brisbane called?" someone asked during the drive back to Chris' house. Idle speculation ensued.

"Brisboneers, perhaps?"
"How about Bris-boners? Heh."
"Brisbanians, I heard."
"Brisoners," said Neil. "Brisoners." Genius. I can't imagine many Aussies thanking us for that one, but I intend to promote it wherever I can.

On Thursday, with Chris embroiled in wedding preparations, Neil, Bryan and I decided to go to Australia Zoo on the independent recommendations of three different Brisoners. We borrowed Chris and Leyla's warhorse '87 Mazda - an oldie but a goldie like the Trøll - and headed north, passing within sight of the striking Glasshouse Mountains and arriving at the zoo about 11.30. We paid our entry fee - a fairly hefty A$43 (!), although reduced to A$32 by a promotional token kindly provided by Leyla - and were hurried by the staff towards the Crocoseum for the main show. (Yes. The Crocoseum.)

For the uninitiated, Australia Zoo is part zoo (if a fairly benign-seeming one), part theme park and part Church of Steve Irwin. The most surprising part is that it hasn't managed to make the transition to shrine yet. The place is still festooned with banners, signs and sayings of the man himself and is still billed as "Home of the Crocodile Hunter". It's as if they haven't quite come to terms with the fact that the man whose personality drives the place, whose enthusiasm permeates it and who basically provides its reason for being, is no longer here to give it legitimacy. The present tense abounds.

We sat down to the show, and some terribly venomous and entirely apathetic snakes were paraded in the centre of the arena. Next some parakeets and parrots buzzed the audience, and finally the big screen lit up to show an intro by the man himself to the main crocodile show. The host skipped lightly over the fact that big Steve had shuffled off this mortal coil ("Ah, we love him don't we? God bless ya Steve. Now, on with the show!") and Monty the croc swam silently into view.

There's an odd disconnect between Steve's posthumous, almost childish enthusiasm for his reptile quarry and the respect with which they have to be treated. The fact that the zoo staff effortlessly toss food into the slavering mouth of this million-year-old apex predator in front of a rapt audience sits uneasily with the fact that he met his untimely demise in just such a situation, contrived to place him in harm's way for our entertainment. I got the feeling that one doesn't go to Australia Zoo to see the animals so much as to hope, subconsciously, that Bill, Jimbo or Frank slips up this one time and trips into Monty's gaping maw.

We watched the informative but curiously flat show - a real live crocodile swimming around is admittedly quite impressive, but only for the first five minutes - and then tramped off to look round the rest of the place. We saw kangaroos, wombats, inconceivably deadly snakes and mighty birds of prey, and yet it never really grabbed us by the throats, so to speak. We took our leave and headed back toward Brisbane after a couple of hours.

On the way back we stopped at the eponymous village nestling amongst the Glasshouse Mountains and ate a rather excellent fish supper for lunch while debating what to do. Mount Ngungun presented itself as being closest and only moderately challenging, and after a five minute drive we abandoned the Mazda and commenced our climb. It was difficult enough in parts, and midway up a particularly vertiginous stretch Neil shouted, "Bloody hell! Look at the size of that thing!" or something to that effect. A massive spider, black with yellow spots on the joints of its legs, hung sphinx-like on its web beside the path. This single hand-sized beast - I haven't been able to identify it yet - was suddenly infinitely more compelling than any number of crocs, wallabies or tigers from Australia Zoo. Not a metre from a well-travelled path, we'd come across just the sort of arachnid fiend that we'd all been looking for since we arrived. It may have been poisonous or it may not, but it was right there and the three of us marvelled at its size and proximity. We climbed on, avoiding the numerous leviathan ants that scuttled towards our feet, and reached the exposed and spine-like summit after half an hour's climb. The flat brushland and verdant forests of Queensland were laid about us and from them shot the monolithic Glasshouse Mountains, their colors attenuated by the hazy distance. So close to the end of the holiday, and on a whim, we'd accidentally discovered our most truly Australian sight yet.

* Bribane hosted World Expo '88 and by all accounts went from an inward looking rural town feared by sheep everywhere to a modern, cosmopolitan metropolis.
** There is a paralysis tick here. A paralysis tick. Dear god.