As our bus pulled into Surfers paradise, the rain started pouring down. The guy from the hostel that collected us said this was the first time it had done this since he moved there about 5 months ago. Just our luck! Once at the hostel we met our new roommates and sat by the pool they had once it had stopped raining. Unfortunately I seemed to get a tummy bug so had to take myself to bed early, and Jo and Claire (who we had met in Sydney) headed out for some coffees.

The next morning I was feeling a bit better and the sun was out, so we put our swimmers on and walked into town to meet Claire for some breakfast. The beach was calling but when we got there it was ridiculously windy, and couldn't hack it for too long as we had sand literally everywhere, so headed back in to town and round the shops. What can I say about Surfers… well, lets just say it reminded us a bit of Blackpool. Definitely a change from Byron Bay that's for sure. We decided a night out was definitely in order, especially seeing as Jo and I had treated ourselves to dresses in Byron Bay.

We dolled ourselves up and decided to join forces with some of the guys in our dorm and their mates who were celebrating one of them turning 20. (I know. Don't say anything…) This included playing drinking games which I generally lost and being introduced to goon. We headed out and went to a bar where I was given tequila which I hate, but sometimes you just have to man up and get on with these things. I can still party like I'm 20 right?

The night ended up in a salsa bar and crawling into bed at god knows what hour. Was safe to say Jo and I felt the worse for wear the next morning. We met up with Claire for a fry up in town and headed back to the hostel to chill out before our greyhound which we thought was at half 1. At 10 to 1 I decided to check to see it was at 10 past. I don't think you've ever seen us move so fast! A lovely guy James at our hostel drove us there really fast and we managed to make it on time. Was a close call!!

Before we knew it we were in Brisbane and meeting my cousin Andy, who along with his girlfriend Trish were putting us up for a couple of nights. After a beer in the city Trish collected us and took us back to their apartment which was right near the river. They have bbq's everywhere here that are free to use and kept in one piece. Definitely not something that would happen in the UK!

Andy cooked us a Barbie and we had some beers with an amazing view. Definitely felt like we were in Australia now! The funny thing was that the whole area was a running hot spot so while we were eating hot dogs and swigging beers we had a constant stream of runners going past us. I'm sure they appreciated the smell of sausages wafting in their running paths…

The Brisbane festival is going on at present, so there were lots of things going on in the city, so we walked to the south bank and watched an amazing light show that was being projected from the river which was pretty spectacular. We explored the south bank, including checking out the man made beach they have in the middle of the city.

Pudding was now well overdue so we went to a chocolate restaurant. Yes that's right. A chocolate restaurant. With hot chocolates in every flavour imaginable we were definitely spoilt for choice here, and the fact there was a queue going out the door made you realise they were definitely on to a good thing!

After an amazing night's sleep (makes such a difference not staying in a hostel occasionally!) Jo and I headed back to south bank to meet her old skating coach whom she hadn't seen for a really long time. We walked across the bridge into the city and stopped for a coffee and they caught up on old times, it was weird being in Brisbane and talking about Bracknell ice rink! We parted ways and Jo and I explored Brisbane, which was a lot more manageable to get around then Sydney.

We decided to get the free ferry home so took a trip down the river in the sunshine which was a great way to end our day in Brisbane. Andy and Trish came home and cooked us an awesome chilli (they were such great hosts to us!) I attempted to book the next stage of my trip which was harder than expected seeing unknown to us it was a bank holiday weekend here. Whoops.

We had a very early start as Jo and I were off to the airport to meet Elliot who was arriving from the UK, and Andy and Trish very kindly took us. We met his mum there and waited ages for him to come out, but there was obviously a festival going on so we got to see lots of music stars in arrivals which kept us entertained!

Once Elliot was through we all headed out for breakfast and I parted ways with them and got a train into town. Feels very weird to be back solo again after having Jo for 2 weeks!! I got to the greyhound station and I'm now in Noosa, which so far seems very lovely and I'm off to Australia zoo tomorrow which being a geek I'm probably a little too excited about….

Love to everyone xxx