Brisbane - 8th October

BrisbaneCar Kilometres: 182,280

Distance Travelled: 232km

Total Distance Travelled: 14,029km

From Noosa, it's only a 130km drive down to Brisbane, although we can't resist stopping on the way at another of Australia's 'big' attractions - this time, the Big Pineapple at the Golden Circle plantation.It's huge and made from fibreglass, filled with a slightly random inside that you follow as you walk up the steps to the pineapple-top lookout.

Kitschy attraction box ticked for the day, we drive on via the Glass House mountains, another beautiful, forested (albeit commercially) range that this state has to offer.We listen to the radio on the way into town, and are slightly worried by the news that the Aussie dollar has dropped to from the high 70's to 66c to the US dollar... we leave for Japan in less than a month and have our fingers crossed that our money isn't worthless by the time we arrive!

We find a campsite out of the city and settle in, intending to spend a few days without spending much cash, and catching up on blogs and admin, as we now have an internet signal back on the laptop.Even a really miserable, whining man and his downtrodden wife and kids parked up next door doesn't dampen the relaxed mood as we write and type away in the shade of a tree.

The next day continues in this pattern, and we read, write and listen to the radio in relative peace - today's disturbance is a huge truck delivering parts for a cabin that is being built a couple of spots down from us, and misery guts next door gets a few whinges in, but we escape to the laundry room when it gets too much, and even decide to treat ourselves to some real meat for a change - two lovely medium rare steaks with some Caesar salad, prepared in the tent of course, are a delicious end to the day.

After a third day of reading and writing, we're starting to get cabin fever a bit, and decide to finally go into Brisbane to explore.We've heard that parking anywhere near town is ridiculously expensive, so we procure a bus timetable and walk the kilometre or so to the nearest bus stop.Once boarded, we zoom along on specially designated bus lanes that go off underground, and don't really get any kind of impression of the city until we've alighted.

We decide to follow the Lonely Planet walking tour, as it seems to cover most of the areas that we're interested in - it takes in the City Hall (including a free tour up the tower for a cool view of the city), King George and Anzac squares, the Shrine of Remembrance, Post Office Square, St Stephen's Cathedral, the Queen Street Mall, the Treasury Building, Land Administration Building, Commissariat Stores Building, Parliament House, Government House and the botanical gardens... all is going well and cultural until we get a bit lost in the university grounds, but order is restored when we find the ferry port and hop over to the South Bank Parklands - here there is an artificial beach set up off the river, complete with life guards, ice cream stands, a graded beach and a fenced off safe swimming area - it's hopping with kids, who have finished school for the day and are bathing with a vengeance.There's a pretty Nepalese pagoda in the park grounds, constructed for a world expo in the 80's, but as you can probably tell from my non-descriptive list, we find Brisbane very much like any other city and didn't really engage with it (it reminds me a bit of Birmingham - a mixture of old, modern, industrial, functional, arty and cultural), and whilst we enjoy the sights, we just can't seem to muster up the usual enthusiasm for city walking.All ok, but we're happy to move on tomorrow.