From Byron Bay it was a 2.5 hour direct coach journey up to Brisbane, which for us now seems like hardly any driving at all! We had decided not to bother stopping off on the Gold Coast, as from the guidebooks it seemed like there wasn't anything there that we hadn't seen elsewhere in Oz, but we did drive past the theme parks, including the water park from the Inbetweeners movie, so we had a good giggle about that. From the bus stop we had a 30 minute walk to our hostel, which luckily we don't have many more of on the trip, but the hostel was lovely and quiet with free wifi (!) so we managed to eventually skype home to talk to my Dad on his birthday. Our hostel is only a 10 minute walk away from the city centre, so on our first full day we walked into the CBD to have a look around - we did a bit of browsing in the Queen Street Mall, and walked through the Botanic Gardens and along by the Brisbane River, which had some lovely views with the city as a backdrop. On our way back to the hostel we even managed to buy loads of easter eggs that were in the clearance area of the supermarket - 5 eggs and boxes of chocolates for the grand sum of £1.25 - it was worth the wait! The next day we decided to tour the city by ferry, because there is a free ferry that goes to all the main places in the city. We started off getting a close up look at the Story Bridge, which was nice but not as impressive as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We then headed back past the city and got off at South Bank, where we walked along by the river and saw the artificial beach - it would have been lovely to go for a swim, but it was heaving with screaming children because it's still school holidays here, so we gave it a miss. Back in the CBD we got $2 cheeseburgers from McDonalds with vouchers we had collected from the supermarket, and then we decided to be a bit more cultural. We visited City Hall and booked onto a free tour, which took us to some of the private areas such as the basement and the Mayors Private Offices, and gave us some interesting information about the building. We then went on another free tour to go to the top of the Clock Tower, which gave us some nice views of the city. The next day we had a walk through China Town, which was nice but very quiet (not at all like the real Hong Kong!), and we then walked across the Story Bridge to the suburb of Kangaroo Point. At that point it started to rain (we;re still not quite out of the Wet Season here!), so we took the free ferry back into the CBD to wait for the shower to pass. Once the weather had cleared up we went to have a look at the farmers market which is held every Wednesday in the Queen Street Mall - they had loads of nice things for sale, so we got lunch from there to sample the local produce. On Thursday we walked up to the Roma Street Parkland to have a look at the area - we were pleasantly surprised with it, because we had both imagined some unkempt area of grassland. It was infact a really well sculpted park, complete with a big lake and a waterfall and loads of nice flowers! It is also right next to the CBD, which we hadn't realised at first. From there we walked to the Old Windmill, which is the oldest surviving structure in Queensland. Its' history isn't as nice as it sounds - it was actually used as a form of punishment for reoffending convicts, and was even used to hang some local Aboriginals (this wasn't mentioned on the sign!). Today we have been relaxing at the hostel, and also making use of the scales in the bathroom to weigh our luggage - luckily we are both a fair way under the weight limit for all our flights, which is a relief to know. Once we had eaten we went back into the CBD to visit the last few places we had missed - the Shrine of Remembrance in ANZAC Square (there is one of these in virtually every town in Australia!), and St Stephens Cathedral (which is a bit of a let down after visiting Winchester Cathedral, but nevermind). In the evening we went to the Brisbane Twilight Markets in King George Square - it was full of lovely handmade crafts, but unfortunately we couldn't buy anything because it would be a bit difficult to get everything home! We're starting to notice time passing quite quickly now, we only have 3 weeks left in Australia and 9 weeks before we get home - lots more to see and do before then though!