The flight from Singapore to Brisbane was quite easy in terms of distance, as we were only in the air for 7 hours, and time difference was only 2 hours. However, we seemed to fly at the worst possible time of day, which made it much more difficult to adjust.

We flew from Singapore at 9:30pm, and landed at 6:30am local time, but after watching a film before bed, then being woken up 2 hours before landing for breakfast, we had only managed about 4 hours sleep.

Once we had made it through the arrivals gate, we walked over to the train platform to get the shuttle in to town. When we tried to pay for our tickets with a bank card we realised that they didn't work in Australia. We tried with 4 different cards, but had no luck. Instead we had to head back into the airport and have a scout around for an ATM machine, before walking back up to the station.

Once we got into town at about 9am, we were relieved to find that our hostel was right across the road from the station, as we just wanted to get to bed. But when we went to the reception the guy told us that we couldn't check in until 2pm. Instead we had to try and sleep on sofas in the TV room, which was absolutely freezing, until they would give us a room. Once we got one we slept until 6pm.

In the evening we cooked up a spag bol and did our laundry, before heading to an internet cafe for a while. As we were both still full of cold from the air con in Singapore, we managed to get back to sleep at night with no bother, despite having slept all day.

We were up early the next day to get over to our couchsurfing hosts house. For those that don't know, Couchsurfing is an online community where travellers can look for places to stay with other travellers whilst they are at home for free. Apart from being a good money saver, it's also a good way to meet local people with similar interests.

Our host, Adam, wasn't in when we arrived, but his Canadian housemates, Lauren and Julie, were. We had a quick cup of tea before heading in to town for a shop. As we had dumped most of our winter gear before heading to Asia, we needed to buy a few more warm clothes. I bought jeans and a jumper and we both bought trainers.

When we got back to the house nobody was in so we had a quick nap on the sofa. When Adam got back we had a quick chat whilst Adam cooked his tea. The whole house were vegetarian, which pretty much ruled me out of sharing any of there meals. Amy had some pumpkin soup, whilst I took Adams bike to the supermarket to get some proper food. In the evening we played Scrabble with Adam before bed.

The next day we walked into town through the botanical gardens which were nice. We saw all sorts of birds and even an Iguana. Once we got to town Amy bought some jeans, then we got stuff for tea and headed back home. In the evening we stayed up drinking wine with the Canadian girls and chatting about music. We made some beef tortillas but we couldn't eat them all as there was so much.

In the morning we went to a science museum in the middle of town. It was quite child orientated, but we enjoyed it and it was free, which is always a bonus. Afterwards we had quite a walk to the far end of town which was meant to have good outdoor shops, as we were considering buying a tent to camp through Aus & NZ. When we got there we could only find one expensive shop, so we'd walked all that way for nothing. In the evening we watched a film with Adam with a couple of glasses of wine.

We were moving to a different couchsurfing host the next day as we didn't want to outstay our welcome, so we packed up our stuff, then spent the afternoon in town where we bought a tent, before making our way over to 'The forest' on the ferry.

The place advertised itself as an open house for travellers, but when we arrived I thought we had stumbled upon some sort of hippy crack den. There were matresses on every square inch of floor, and the walls were covered in grafitti. In short, the place was a dump. Most of the people staying there were nice enough though, and they told us that we had come at a quiet time, as loads of the permanent residents were away for the weekend. We still counted about 20 people in the house though, so god knows what it's like when it's busy.

When we were cooking our tea some weird fat French-Canadian guy with skintight leapordskin leggings was sharing the kitchen. He had his music playing through his laptop, and it couldn't have been more stereotypical if he were trying. It had Sitars playing with some voiceover saying things like "Release your mind" and "Explore the soul". Amy and I had to try our hardest not to start laughing.

In the evening we walked to the off licence with a smart looking British guy that looked really out of place there, then spent the evening drinking. In fairness we had quite a good time chatting to everyone, and it was quite social. The Canadian and his wife, who was telling me about her 'portfolio' of glamour shots, were entertaining as always. Apparently they feel a real spiritual connection with Tibet, despite having never been. After a while we found a spare matress and got some sleep.

In the morning we woke up grumpy and hungover, and we couldn't get into the shower due to a queue, so we decided to head back into town. We were meant to spent one more night there, but we couldn't be bothered with the grime, so we emailed Adam and asked if we could go back to his for a night, then walked around the riverfront where there was a Corvette exebition on.

Luckily Adam had replied saying he was more that happy for us to come over, so we went back to the Forest and got out as quick as possible. We had quite a relaxed evening watching films and playing scrabble, before getting to bed. Off to Byron the next day...