Brisbane, Australia - Kirsty

G'day! Cliche I know but had to be said! Here we are, a week in sunny Australia, lapping up the sun, sea and sand, topping up the tan..... Or not. So we landed on December 1st the official first day of summer. It turns out it's just a myth. Since we arrived we've had one dry day... The rest have been rainy. Not just umbrella drizzle but full on windy rain, Manchester style. Can't complain though with daytime lows of 19 and as I read of snowfall back home.

We initially flew into Brisbane and just spent the first few days getting our bearings and sorting things out. I really enjoyed Brisbane, the city itself is small enough that everything is within walking distance and our hostel ran a handy hourly shuttle bus. We spent a morning wandering around the main art and modern art galleries. As a city Brisbane seems to be investing and growing in the arts with lots of live music, exhibitions and outdoor events. We managed to catch some Christmas jazz music played by bands in the city centre too. We had dinner on the riverside and enjoyed the views from the bridges.

On fri and sat we met up with Brett, who was our lodger when I was 3 in New Malden! It was great to be shown around Brisbane by a local who took us to view points, on an evening river ride to see the city lit up and drove us down to the gold coast. The gold coast is beautiful and the typical Aussie postcard with sandy beaches, blue sea and surfers on the waves. We walked along and through Surfers Paradise playing spot the Brits. It's also a time of year called 'schoolies' where all the 17year olds who gave just finished their exams head to the gold coast for a week on the beach. An Aussie version of Newquay I guess. And the older Aussies who seem to follow them there are known as 'toolies'. Apt.

People are right in saying that Australia is expensive but we've been frugal as ever cooking our own food and all our hostels have been fine so far. We're getting used to the Aussie accent and Marie has adjusted to the fact that we're not on the Neighbours set!

From Brisbane we wanted to do a Fraser island tour so headed 2 hours up the coast to a town called Noosa. Over to you Marie... Our very own nature correspondent....!