Bisbane is the third largest city in Australia and the capital of Queensland. It was only a very short journey from Gold Coast to reach Brisbane. I thought Brisbane was the most aesthetically pleasing city we had seen in Australia with each building bringing its own unique style to the city. The city also had wide straight roads that let you see for a lot further down each road and gave some pedestrian only streets that were really popukar and full of market sta...

The Gold Coast is a big holiday destination in Australia with several water and theme parks as well as a zoo and stunning beaches right outside metropolitan areas. This was our first of 2 destinations in Queensland, the 'Sunshine State' above New South Wales. The Gold Coast was a very thin long city that had some really built up regions like Surfers Paradise where we stayed and some that didn't seem to be part of a city at all like Coolangata. The beaches all a...

Yamba and Byron bay were both short stops on our way up the coast to Queensland. Both places had stunning beaches perfect for surfing and Yamba was voted best town in Australia 3 years in a row. In Yamba I had my first taste of surfing when we hired boards and were briefly taught on land how to use them. Surfing proved to be a lot more difficult than I had first thought, like learning to ride a bike all over again but out at sea. I also had my first campfire on...

Canberra is Australia's largest inland city and is situated in Australia's Capital Territory, much like Washington D.C in America. Its very obvious walking around Canberra that the city had been designed very specifically with nearly all roads being very straight and peculiar shapes being formed by the roads around the city. We stayed in a slightly more expensive hostel (Canberra only had 3 'hostels') that had a spa, pool and a larger kitchen/eating area. Loo...

Melbourne was a pleasant change of pace from Perth. Melbourne is the 2nd largest city in Australia with around 4 million people and was also voted 'most livable city' 3 years in a row by 'EUI Global Livability Survey'. We stayed in a Pub/hostel that had live rock bands play and very reasonable rates for food and alcohol for backpackers. The general cost of everything in the city was around London prices as before and public transport was again cheaper with t...