The story continues, Iain bless him picked up the car from Fortitude Valley in Brisbane and came back to pick me and the cases (which seem to have got a lot heavier) up at the hotel. We have a Mitsubishi 380 in red and Iain looks right at home behind the wheel, it's an automatic and very easy to drive (I had a little go in a car park). We set off down for Surfers Paradise where as I'm a backseat driver at the best of times, I reminded myself of my mother when Dad used to hire cars in Majorca although I remained quiet as it was a very pleasant drive and only took us about 45 mins. As we drove into Surfers, it reminded me of Seacroft on sea (much to Iains disgust!) because of all the high rise buildings. We arrived at our hotel which was absolutely superb on the 13th floor with ocean views! We went for a walk along the beach which was gorgeous, particularly so on a clear day when you can see all the way along the gold coast and the sand was really white. We walked into the centre which surprised us as it was really quite cool with a mix of cheap touristy shops intermingled with Prada and Louis Vitten and had a realy nice vibe with lots of eateries. On the way back we stopped off at Q1 which was built in 2002 and is the 20th tallest building in the world. The lift went up 80 floors in 43 seconds and people actually live on the floors below. The views were breathtaking and we just wish it had been a little brighter as on a clear day apparently you can see all the way to Byron Bay. We'vve taken some great pictureswhich we will put up even though I'm not sure they'll do it justice! Last night we ate in the fabulous hotel restaurant, on 26th floor and the only revolving restaurant in Queensland. This morning we awoke to brilliant views especially because the sunshine was back with our only regret that we didn't have enough night there.

This morning we began the drive down to Byron Bay, which was really great as we stopped off at a few places on the way, including Burleigh Heads, Rainbow Bay, Tweed Heads (We couldn't not with a name like that!) and Coolangatta. Each of which we got out and had a little walk round, especially Rainbow Bay where we ventured into the Surf Club for fish and chips and a spectacular view of the beach and the surfers enjoying the waves!

I'll save our trip to the Lighthouse for my round up on Byron Bay in a couple of days time.

Hope everybody is well, lots of love.

Sara and Iain

xxxxxxx