We missed out on Brisbane back in June because the weather was so bad we sidestepped it during our inland dash north to avoid the rain. It was the only state capital we hadn't visited, however, so we felt duty-bound to see what it had to offer.

Being honest, we would have to say that Brisbane is our least favourite of Australia's big cities. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with it, but there's no 'wow' factor to give it any kind of edge.

Like most of south-eastern coastal Queensland, Brisbane has been the victim of over-development. There are some beautiful old buildings in the city centre, but they lie overshadowed by towers of glass and concrete. Some of the skyscrapers are actually quite well designed, but others are completely and utterly tasteless.

One of the best things anyone can do in Brisbane is to get a one-day travel card. This covers buses, trains and - more importantly - the river ferries and catamarans. We decided to have a Sunday out and caught the bus from our camp into the city centre via a neat series of bus-only roads, some of them underground.

From there, we walked to the riverside and caught a small ferry, which bobbed up and down quite happily as it meandered along from one bank to the other. When it reached the end of its journey, we picked up one of the sea cats and stood on the bow as it raced along, the wind threatening to tear off our hats at every second.

We did a similar ferry trip in Sydney which passed by the Opera House and underneath the Harbour Bridge. While Brisbane has nothing of that class to see, the view of the city was excellent, showing off both the bad and the good to equal effect. It was from the boat that we saw the worst examples of terrible tower blocks and could almost smell the whiff of corruption which must have accompanied their approval and construction.

We stayed on the sea cat to the far end of its run then returned on it to the city centre and disembarked by the south bank arts centre, home to museums and theatres. We bought some lunch at one of the many stalls and ate it sat on the grass while we watched a tennis match on a large screen.

Brisbane is a little way from the coast and the river is not suitable for swimming, but the authorities have compensated by building a series of small pools fringed with sand on the south bank. We wandered among them, watching hundreds of people cool off in the scorching heat.

We also saw the end of a juggling act by one of the several performers who frequent the area. It was most noteworthy for the way the juggler tried to make his audience cough up for watching him. He mixed humour with attempts at making people feel guilty if they didn't reach into their pockets and come out with something other than a dollar or two. It would have been interesting to see how much he ended up with.

Brisbane no doubt has a lot more to offer, but after seven months we have had our fill of Australian attractions. The Queensland museum is meant to be very good, but we couldn't summon up enough enthusiasm to do it justice having visited similar establishments in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide etc etc.

We got more enjoyment out of helping our neighbours with their broken tent pole. Having received help from many people on our travels, it was nice to be the "experts" for a change as we replaced the broken section and re-threaded the cord. We also showed them how to put it up rather better than they had managed before. Their initial attempt had looked rather like our own first try, back in Sydney in May - a drooping shambles,

The only other noteworthy thing we did in Brisbane was to clean the interior of the car thoroughly, because when we return to Sydney in a few days Ramsay is going up for sale - though we haven't told him yet in case he gets upset!

Richard