16 March - We arrived in Brisbane. Brisbane is the first big city we have been to in Australia. It is the capital of Queensland. There are lots of shopping malls with cheap food courts for us to eat in and cinemas etc but also lots of older buildings too.

We visited Chinatown and Fortitude Valley which had lots of street markets as it was the weekend. We also visited Queensland Museum. Unlike Asia where we learnt lots about the culture and history of the people, this museum was more about nature and the country itself. There were loads of stuffed animals and reptiles in jars!

On our third day we went on a boat trip to Moreton Island. We saw loads of dolphins and green sea turtles which came really close to the boat. Then we went Boomnetting which is basically where the attach a net to the back of the boat which you get in and the boat drags you along. It was so hard to hold on to the net when the boat went really fast and me and another girl lost our bikini bottoms and had to stop the boat to pull them back up! It was really embarressing but you couldn't hold onto the net and your bikini at the same time! Anyway after that experience we stopped at the Island and climbed the sand dunes, well Ben did and I managed to get halfway up. Just off the beach were some shipwrecks and a reef which we snorkelled around. It was really cool swimming around the wrecks, felt just like we were in the Little Mermaid or Sharks Tale! The only problem was the tide was really strong and dragged us into the wrecks which were really sharp and Ben cut his knee on one.

The following day we did a tour of the Castlemaine brewery which brews XXXX beer. It was really interesting learning how the company started and how beer is brewed from the raw materials right up to the packaging. At the end of the tour we got 4 beers to drink and got chatting to the other people on the tour, 5 Irish people. They were really nice and invited us to go back to a pub with them. It all went downhill from there what with Happy Hour and a drinking competition which Ben had to represent England in! One of the Irish girls won the competition beating all the boys and her prize was two bottles of wine so as you can imagine it turned out to be a messy night!

On our last day in Brisbane we visited "The Gabba" which is the Brisbane Cricket Ground. The tour was great and we couldn't believe how big the stadium was. We got to see the media rooms where the commentators sit, the changing rooms and the practice wickets. We even got to walk around on the pitch and were really excited to think that the England and Australia teams had played here just a few months ago.

Next we're off to Surfer's Paradise so we'll update again soon.