17-20 January

Well this is over a month ago now so I will be brief with the update!

We spent three days in Brisbane, walked around the city, went up the Town Hall bell tower, walked along a boardwalk to the 'Streets Beach' (an artificial beach in the middle of the city complete with sand and palm trees - sponsored by Streets the Australian version of Wall's ice cream), had a look at the botanical gardens and Brisbane Museum.  After spending one night in a smelly, dirty room at the YHA we decided to check out and find somewhere else to stay.  Unfortunately we then found that the other hostels were full but we were offered a room on the Brisbane Houseboat so we spent the next couple of nights on a big boat which was something a bit out of the ordinary (www.oceanxplorer.com).  We even got a nice breakfast included so definitely better than your average backpackers.  Jon, the owner of the boat, described us as 'flashpackers' rather than backpackers which I quite like!  On the last day we also got a lift into the city centre on the owner's speedboat which was good fun.