Hello everyone,

We arrived in Brisbane on Sunday to yet another scorching day, and we stayed in another campsite almost as nice as the one we had in Surfers Paradise. After pitching our tent under the shade of a tree we headed straight to the nearest bus stop to get into Brisbane city centre.

We were both really impressed by Brisbane. It's quite a small city, but very nice. As it would have been my Dad's birthday, Sian and I decided to have a drink and raise a toast in his honour. Rather excellently we found a bar called 'Jimmy's' in which to do it. We spent the rest of the day walking around the shops and generally staying out of the heat as much as we could.

Eventually we got back to our campsite and sorted ourselves out for bed. Each time we get back into the tent we have to carry out our 'bug check' to make sure we have no unwelcome visitors. Unfortunately most of the wildlife in this country wants to bite and/or eat you - and Sian and I must taste like chocolate because the little b*ggers seem to love biting us. Anyhoo, we killed the one or two invaders with a book and tried to get to sleep in what was more of an oven than a tent. At night it didn't get below about 24 degrees.

During the night we kept hearing things hitting the tent, which we thought may have been twigs. It wasn't until I was gearing up to leave the tent very early the next morning that I realised what it was: bird poo. POO! So much poo. It was all over our tent. I'd left the front flap of the tent open at first to let the cool air in. While this was the case they pooed on my bag, my towel(!) and the flap of the tent, so when I pulled it down the poo was on the inside! I said to Sian 'There's poo everywhere!' All she could do was laugh. The next day we decided to move the tent out from under the tree.

We spent the next day walking around Brisbane museum, mostly because it was free, but it proved to be very interesting. Later we went on Brisbane's big wheel to get a good view of the city. I also had a much needed haircut, at the end of which the barber decided to trim my eyebrows for me (without asking). I can't see the difference, but Sian can.

Our next stop was Rainbow Beach, where we were staying in a cabin rather than camping. We've had enough of camping in this heat! It's always in the mid-30's each day and getting hotter the further north we get. The cabin was really nice, and we were able to do some cooking for a change. We had beans on toast, which was well received! We just spent our time there chilling out and doing some much needed laundry.

At the moment we are at a stop in Hervey Bay en route to Rockhampton. We'll upload our photos and videos as soon as we can. In the meantime, don't forget to leave us messages on our board!

Fin and Sian