Hey everyone! I am in Brisbane at the moment, have been here for 3 days and as ever have lots to say, but might run out of time again! (I've now finished the fraser island blog)

Ok well first of all, for those who don't know I have changed my route home. I haven't been happy with it since I booked it- I couldn't get a decent flight to Fiji, and to cut a very long story short, i didn't want to do a day and a half there, then have a 20 hour flight home. So i went in to the Qantas office yesterday and was helped by a lovely man called Nicholas who has managed to change my bookings very easily. Sooo, now my route looks a bit like this:

Chey leaves Sydney on 10th January, on the 11th January I fly to Hawaii for 9 days. (That's right!! Hawaii!!!!!!) Then after that I get the plane to... San Francisco!!!!!! For about 5 days ,then i come home. So i will be home on the 26th January. How awesome is that route!!! I never dreamt i'd be able to do all that, and they are 2 places i've ALWAYS wanted to go to, i just figured it'd be too expensive to do this trip! I cannot wait! So- mum and dad, when chey comes out if you could possibly send some jeans, jumpers and a pair of trainers out as well, then i have warm clothes for san fran! Woop! I haven't stopped smiling yet.

So brisbane. It's nice to be in a town, although smaller than say Syndey, it's still quite a cosmopolitain place. Walking down Queen Street last night was great- so much live music to see. We eventually settled on a place outside, with 2 guys playing music- they were really good so we sat drinking beer and listening to them. Such a great feeling. On Thursday Jetteke and I caught the train to Australia Zoo- where the Irwin family live. It's still full of Steve- video clips, comments, pictures, memorials, loads of stuff. Also, his daughter Bindi features heavily, and when I say heavily I mean in an over-exposed far-too-commercial kind of way. There are Bindi dolls, Bindi lunch boxes, toys, even an exercise tape- bloody hell the kid is only 12, it's way too much and incredibly annoying. But put that aside and i think it's a very good zoo. The essence of the zoo is to educate people in the different types of animals, in the hope that they'll love them and want to conserve them. I think it works. When we got there I got to feed an elephant a piece of melon- his trunk was really rough as he swiped the slice out of my hand! And then I stroked a koala, who has really thick fur. They were really funny things, so content to just sit and sleep. Since I arrived in Australia, i've made it my personal mission to do stuff that I just wouldn't do in England- so my challenge to myself was to hold a snake. Anyone who knows me well will know that about 10 years ago I had an irrational phobia of snakes, and although I am not so bad now, seeing a snake was something I definitely did not want to do. So, I decided that I had to hold one at the zoo. Jake is a ten foot python, weighing about 15kilos. And he was wrapped around my neck! The skin was strangely soft, although i didn't press too hard, i just wanted to get it over with! Have a look at the pictures, i'm really proud of myself! It was a good day, very long but definitely worth a look.

So that's pretty much it, i'm enjoying Brisbane, on Monday I'm going about an hour south to stay with a friend who lives here, it will be soooo nice not to be heaving my stuff here there and everywhere with me! Really looking forward to being in a home, not just a hostel common room. will put the photos up now.

See you soon!!!

xxxxxx