Hi all,

After a super few days in Brisbane I have just zoomed up past the Sunshine Coast to Hervey Bay, where I am hoping to jump aboard a tour out to Fraser Island in the next day or two. Bellingen, where I last updated from, feels a world away now, I have done a lot of exploring since so here goes on an update for you all!

I left Bellingen on Friday and caught a local bus a little further north to Coffs Harbour, a pretty town with the Solitary Islands marine park on one side and the mountains of the Great Dividing Range on the other. I had planned an epic bike ride for the following day but it poured all night and morning so I eventually set out on foot over to the Harbour and along the seafront to the base of Muttonbird Island, which I scrambled up in the rain and then got battered by hailstones on a track over the top, past empty shearwater birds nests, and down to a sheltered cove with some awesome views of the sea and back over Coffs Harbour. Eventually the sky cleared and the sun came out - hooray so I dried off and took a coastal track past a long beach and then into bush and wetlands up to the Botanic Gardens. They were pretty spectacular with boardwalks over mangroves in which lived thousands of tiny and bemusing crabs. I struck lucky too and stumbled upon a wild koala! It was a short way up a tree trunck, bang in front of the path I was on! It scurried down, and up another tree, and another before leaping up and out of sight in a really tall eucalyptus - wow!

I left Coffs the following day, after a monster Aussie BBQ at the hostel and a morning at some markets along the Harbour foreshore. I took a late bus & train up to Byron Bay, the 'must do' on the backpacker circuit. And it sure was a cool place, full of surfing and crafts shops, bookshops, bars, cafes, galleries, alternative boutiques and random fortune tellers. I wandered the streets and soaked up the atmosphere and took the Cape Byron Walkway out to a the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. It was a stunning, undulating track, which wove through coastal rainforest and along the clifftops looking down onto a clear blue sea, where I saw turtles and a pod of bottlenose dolphins in the waves, which I mistook for sharks at first! I continued up to a lighthouse from where I saw two humpback whales, quite far out - the first of the northerly migration. I dipped my toes in the sea too but wasn't brave enough for any surfing. Bryon sure is a great place and I left it in the dark on Monday night when I caught a late bus up past the Gold Coast to Brisbane. It was a fascinating ride, about two hours past a continuous line of shopping malls, flashing lights, car showrooms, theme parks, and McDonalds - there was literally one every 5km, it was incredible. The East coast is just one continuous line of shopping malls I have learnt. I arrived in a hostel in Brisbane opposite the station at midnight to find an empty dorm room to myself - amazing! However, another person appeared at 2am, another at 5, and by the time I woke up it was a full house - so not the best of nights!

Since arriving in Brisbane I have been very lucky to be staying with Nicky & Brad, relatives of my Uncle Alan in Hampshire. They live in a real Aussie house in a suburb not far from the city centre, and have a nice dog as well as a possum that lives up a tree in the back garden! So finally I have seen my first live possum! I have been out and about exploring Brisbane since, on a free walking tour that covered all the sights of the city centre, around a Farmers Market, and around the South Bank too, which has a great Museum of Queensland, a couple of galleries, and some really nice parklands with rainforest, mangroves and fig trees along the river. There is a cool artificial beach too, although the large saltwater pool was empty except for a mass of seagulls and an observant lifeguard. Brad has given me a super driving tour of the city and surrounds, up to Mount Coot-tha for a panoramic view of the city and Moreton Bay islands, through a whopper tunnel under the city and river, and over to the Port full of shipping containers and coal trains - it was fascinating. And I had a real Aussie experience on Friday evening too - we went out to the local members club for dinner and to try our luck on some gambling machines - a very popular friday night thing in Australia - I didn't quite get the games but it sure was fun!

Yesterday I took a train an hour north of Brisbane to the satellite town of Caboolture where I have caught up with my friend, Tamara, from my trip in the States. We went out hiking in the nearby Glass House Mountains, nine dramatic pinnacles which rise up out of nowhere. They were awesome, we climbed one, drove another and scrambled like mountain goats part way up another. We continued north last night up to Hervey Bay - it was so much fun being in a car and not a train or coach. Anyway, you sure can't get a coach through a McD drive-thro! I will do a quick bit of research now and hopefully catch a trip out to Fraser Island, before returning with Tamara to Brisbane on Thursday for a long weekend out to North Stradbroke Island with Nicky & Brad. We will be fishing which I'm quite excited about. But I'll try and update before then!

Grace xx