Hello from Brisvegas!

Flying home tomorrow so this will be my last update (did I just hear sighs of relief all the way from the other side of the world?)

So last Saturday, Neil, Chloe, Janina and I hired ourselves a wee Toyota Corolla (who we named Colin), to drive to the markets at Eumundi. Unfortunately it was a p!ss poor day, so walking around the market was a bit bleak, but good fun getting there in Colin with our Aussie sat nav Ken keeping us right. After walking around for a while and eating as many free macadamias as we could get away with, we got back into Colin and got a Kiwi sat nav man to take us to a wee town called Montville. It was such a cute little place! The main street had lots of cool shops including an Irish and Scottish shop! I had a look but wasn't prepared to pay $3 for an Irn Bru when I'll be back in Scotland in a few days. We went for something to eat and spotted a koala in one of the trees on the way back to Colin. Ok, that's not strictly true... we actually spotted a group of people staring upwards and followed their gaze, which led to a koala. Either way, it was still cool :) I'm in love with koalas! Too cute.

We got back in the afternoon and I can't remember what we did but I'll take a stab and say we went for a nap or ate something... then in the evening we decided we'd make good use of having Colin, so we took him for a spin to Caloundra and then Nambour, both of which seemed fairly unexciting! (However, we DID see the "big pineapple" twice in the same day, which is pretty exciting).

The next day it was time to go to Australia Zoo. It was great! We got the courtesy bus and they were playing some Crocodile Hunter clips. There was something sad about being at Steve Irwin zoo, knowing that he isn't around anymore. His presence is everywhere within the park. Chloe and Janina fed the elephants and then we met an old school friend of Chloe's who works there, who let us hold a baby alligator - it was so cute! I want one (to add to the list of Australian animals I want as pets). We got to chill out with the kangaroos and get up close to the koalas. Good fun.

On our last day in Mooloolaba, we decided to take a couple of surf boards to the beach. Being the pro that I am, I gave the others a quick lesson on how to surf (slash, on what I'd been taught at Surf Camp all those weeks ago). Shame I didn't think about the fact that, at Surf Camp, they provide you with learner boards which are about as wide as they are long... the boards we hired from Mooloolaba Backpackers were very slim and I couldn't even balance when I was lying down on it, never mind attempting to paddle or stand up! I ended up getting dumped and pushed into the swimming zone (AKA the no-surfing zone) and I kinda got told to move by the lifeguards over the loudspeaker... crrrringe! Haha. I gave up soon after that and decided to use my surf board as a sunlounger instead. Sadly there wasn't much sun, so all in all it was an unlucky afternoon! That evening the hostel put on "Get Him to the Greek", which was alright. Then the next day it was time to get on my last ever Oz bus and head back to Brisbane!

I met Thomas and we walked the 30 ish minutes to Joni's place in West End. Thomas, Joni and I got a takeaway Nando's and monged out infront of the TV all evening, which was nice. In the morning, Thomas and Joni went to work and it was a bit cloudy, so I did some more nothing and then met Neil, Chloe and Janina in Brisbane. Another evening was spent staring at the TV with Thomas and Joni, and on Thursday I went back into town to stock up on souvenirs, which is always fun :) Thomas only had to work a half day on Friday, so after sunbathing for 3 glorious hours at beautiful Southbank, I walked back to Joni's and we decided to take the City Cat into town at about 5pm. It went freakin' fast - good job we were going for the windswept look. We got a filthy kebab at Southbank (amazing) then had a wander around. When we were walking back to West End, we saw Joni and her friend (?) Chad, who had been at the cricket all day and were proceeding to drink. We went in to the bar and joined them for one, then went back to the house. Thomas's friend Steven came around and brought a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, which we shared :) He's so sweet! Funny.

Yesterday, Mary and Howard (Thomas's mum and stepdad) came and picked me, Thomas and Joni up and took us for breakfast. After saying goodbe to Joni, we came back to the house in Mansfield, where this whole journey began! Does not feel like 3 months now that I'm back. After Howard cooked us a lovely meal, we took a drive up to a lookout point (name escapes me) and had a hot chocolate whilst looking out to beautiful Brisbane :) We got back around 8pm and watched "Knight and Day", quite a funny Cameron Diaz/Tom Cruise movie.

Today, Thomas's sister Joanne, her partner Mike and daughter Kyra came round for Sunday lunch. Since then we've not done much other than print our boarding passes for tomorrow and watch another DVD. It's Sunday after all.

So that brings me to the end, I guess! Can't believe I'm saying that. Now that it's over, I feel like I got here just yesterday, and I don't think I'm quite ready to leave this amazing place... I've covered so much ground in such a short space of time that it suddenly feels as though I need more time to absorb it! But, all things come to an end, and I guess it's better to leave wishing I could stay, than be sitting here counting the days until I get to go home.

Australia... I love you :)