Between Christmas and New Year it was fairly quiet but we found time to let Bill and Laura take us out for the day to Brisbane. They picked a great day for the weather and so decided to see the city by rivercruise, getting of at various stops. Our first stop was Chinatown where we went for an authentic lunch called Yum Cha...Chinese style dumplings, along with the usual chinese dishes. The place where we went serves the food as soon as you sit down. The waiters bring trolleys of food round and you just take what you want. They get so busy so the quicker they get you fed and out, the quicker they can get the next people in. After lunch we took a walk around the city, then headed to Southbank where we got the boat back.

For NYE we went to Jo's cousins (Lea) flat in Southport for a few drinks then headed into Surfers Paradise. Stupidly we had forgotten our ID and were not allowed into the restaurant that Lea had booked. We didn't realise how strict they were over here, IDing everyone that was under 25. So, we found a nice Japanese restaurant and enjoyed champagne and sake. We saw NY day in on the beach with yet more champagne, a huge firework display and thousands of others. Happy New Year to everyone!

After spending a couple of days recovering we headed down the coast to Byron Bay. We visited the lighthouse and most easterly point of Australia, from here we spotted turtles, turtelling around the rocks! Matt was hungry and had heard that Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) owned a hotel in Byron. We later found out that it wasn't a themed bar and he now lives in LA so we had our grub elsewhere. That afternoon we chilled on the beach.

On the 5th we celebrated Laura's birthday with her and her friends. We ate at a place called Fermented Grape where we had bottomless wine for an extra 3 bucks per main course . We then stumbled over to Jupiters Casino. This is a huge place with loads of bars, restaurants, and of course a casino. We enjoyed a few more drinks and watched some high rollers before going home with most of our savings intact.