Greetings from the Gold Coast!

Since Monday I have been living the life of luxury at Sue's house. When I was about 15 I went to a dance school and Sue's daughter, Stephanie also went there. By pure coincidence, 5 minutes before I boarded the plane from SIngapore to Darwin I checked my facebook to find a message from Sue saying she was living near Brisbane. Well, I stopped by for a few nights, and am staying here for over a week!

Sue and her husband Barry live in a beautiful house in an area called Burleigh Heads. The house itself has a swimming pool and a pool table, with the comfiest bed I have slept in in nearly 2 months! No more bunk beds, just a nice comfortable double. I can honestly say I have been spoilt from the moment I got here, Sue and Barry ahve very kindly taken me to Surfers Paradise, Main Beach, and to the border where Queensland meets New South Wales... this was weird, because there is a time difference even though they're in a pretty much straight line- Queensland doesn't do day-light saving, apparently it will upset the cows, whereas NSW does. So the picture of my feet, with one foot stood in Queensland, and the other in NSW, means that actually my left foot was in one time zone, but my right foot was an hour later. It must be so confusing for people living in one area but working in another- they would lose an hour and get very confused all the time!

The weather has been very up and down this week, Monday and Tuesday and WEdnesday was over cast and raining, but by Thursday it was beautifully hot and sunny, not a cloud in the sky! Sue and I went on a coffee cruise of the city's canal system, looking on the big and beautiful houses on the canalside with big boats and helicopters parked on the front lawn (see the pictures) It's definitely a different life to the backpackers! At 9am the temperature was 28 degrees! I nearly melted.

After the cruise, Barry came to meet us and we went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, I loved looking at the memorabilia and things, and have bought the mandatory t-shirt of course!

Sue and Barry really do live the good life ehre, it's beautiful 95% of the year, aroudn the corner there are the shops you need, beautiful houses, and a 15minute walk to a gorgeous beach, better than that at Surfer's Paradise. I have had a wonderful week, it was so nice to be able to have my own room and not have to worry about buying food, or putting away my food so that no one steals it, then being able to have a shower longer than 2 minutes (at my last hostel that was all we were allowed) and wash my clothes in a nice washing machine, not to mention the mountain of food I've consumed with how many beers and glasses of wine!!!! But next week, on Tuesday i'm back on the travelling trail heading south to Byron Bay a little beach town south of here.

I'm putting pictures up of this week in the Brisbane album, if I can I'll rename it the Gold Coast.

Hope you're all ok, speak to you soon

xxxxx