Blogs from Eight Mile Plains, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

So, as usual a lot has happened since our last blog update: we have finished our Currumbin Valley home-stay, had a whistle stop tour of Byron Bay, my dad has been (and gone), we have completed our Fraser Island adventure and are now packing for Melbourne on Monday. It's all happening at the moment and time is flying past. We have now been in Australia for 5 months and are nearly half of the way through, it only seems five minutes ago that we were at Heathrow Airport and boarding our flight over here. Now, where to start? Firstly, on the weekend before we left Currumbin, Ellie and I squeezed a one night stay in at Byron Bay (just south of the Gold Coast). Ellie has previously visited the place during her last visit to Australia ... read more

So, we are in Brisbane now and gradually settling into our new surroundings. Although we haven’t explored much of the City itself, it has a very vibrant feel to it, is easy to get around on public transport (it has an Oyster card type scheme) and actually feels quite European in itself (plenty of coffee shops). Ellie has unfortunately been struck down with a cold the last few days (must be all the hot weather) and so we haven’t been out and about as much as we had hoped but we have managed to visit Brisbane’s Southbank where all the main museums and art galleries are located. These are pretty cool but we agreed that we visited them at the wrong time as they were all in the middle of building new exhibitions so there was ... read more

Hello everyone! Just a quick note to say we haven't been eaten by Great Whites or bitten by Redbacks or anything like that. We are alive and kicking!! Since the last blog we went to a place called Cape Tribulation where the Great Barrier Reef meets the Daintree rainforest - a pretty unique experience. It's like going back in time there - no petrol stations/cash machines for miles and no mobile signal!! It was a nice change from city life though. We went snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef, which was amazing. It's just as good as it looks on the David Attenborough docos! We saw a huge turtle and got really close to it, so that was an experience, plus a load of funky coloured fish and a sea snake. Since then (that was about ... read more