Andrea: Feeling great from our beach time in Noosa (and feeling like a holiday within a holiday with our own bedroom and apartment!), we pulled into Brisbane on the Greyhound. We had found a private room for a good price but it wasn't available for the first night of our stay so it was back to shared living for just one night. We booked the cheapest room we could find because, again, it was only one night...how bad could it be? (The previous sentence is a literar...

Vern: Our beach-to-beach jaunt continued further south down the coast to Noosa, the beach to 'be seen'. Naturally, we stayed in a shared apartment a little out of town and thus weren't seen. It was our best accommodation yet - a complete beachfront duplex with our own lounge and kitchen shared only with two young Spanish guys, a policemen and recently graduated PE teacher. We got to employ our Spanish phrases again and enjoyed their company. They were in love wit...

Vern: We arrived in Hervey Bay (said Harvey Bay, go figure) to find that the hostel we'd booked had been closed for breaching several health codes. Luckily, its travel desk remained open and they arranged for us to move to a nicer place (nicer in that its license to operate hadn't been revoked) for the same price. Hervey Bay was for a long time a caravan park by the sea, but several beach facing apartment blocks have since sprung up and it has forged its way ont...

Vern: Our next stop down the east coast was Airlie Beach - the "gateway to the Whitsunday Islands". Our hostel was one of many on the little town's only commercial street. Once again, there is a risk of getting stung by box jellyfish in the sea here so they've built a Lagoon and recreational area with barbecues and play-gyms as a less deadly alternative. We explored the little town to work up an appetite then tucked into a steak dinner at the hostel bar (included...

Andrea: Waking up at 4:30 in a hostel in a party town in Australia is an interesting experience. I guess 'interesting' isn't the right word, but our roommate came home about the time our alarm went off so the normal wake up from a drunken roomie coming in at an ungodly hour was actually convenient this time. We got up and packed and left for our 30 minute walk to catch our first Oz Experience bus. The bus was coming at 6:15 and we didn't want take any chances so ...