Brisbane

Arriving we tried to contact Chris to find that he was working for the next few hours, we went for a little wander to waste some time until he was free. We ended up at the culture centre where he met us although on arrival said that he had just been on his phone checking the directions at the traffic lights when a policeman had seen and fined him $300.

The house was nice, big and air conditioned, it was great to see everyone again, Chris cooked us some Kangaroo that we had picked up on the way, it is super tasty I will definitely have to try some more before we leave.

The next day we went back into the city with Sasha when she went to work, everyone in Australia seems to start their day early and go to bed fairly early too, so we were in the centre about 8.

We checked a few places out and ended up at the pretend beach in the centre, it is next to the river and rather surreal, it looks like a normal beach with lifeguards but on entering the water it's not salty and occasionally you come across a metal grate in the sandy bottom.

At night we all went out to EH a local “tavern” as they call it but to us it would be a club/casino/restaurant/hotel, quite expensive however chris won $80 on the slots so most of the night was on him. He had also heard about an interview he had been to for the job of a spotter catcher and he had been offered the job so he would soon be starting his dangerous animal training.

Day two in Brisbane and we all jumped in the car and drove to Noosa, some surfing beaches up the coast around 1 hour, Sasha feeling a little hungover bought everyone ginger slush puppy type drinks. Noosa is a little surf village and clearly quite a popular area to holiday, the beach is nice with lifeguarded areas although these were not very busy today as the swell was pretty small. We had a go surfing Chris' board however it was a little small for the waves so the rides were quite short however it did mean that I could use Chris as an instructor to help me with my duck dives.

After Thailand for a week and now Oz for almost two weeks one would expect that we would start to have tanned however I have been using so much sun cream I think it looks like I have just come straight off the plane, we have found a Gingers size pot, about 750ml for $10 in Woolworths.

The last full day and we decide it's time for a rest day so spend most of it in the house talking to Faye and catching up on everything such as clothes washing, it's super hot today so going outside anywhere near the middle of the day wouldn't end well.