Base Brisbane Palace Central Hotel

... drove to a surfing/beach resort town called Noosa Heads. It is a lovely, upscale town that caters to the vacationer’s every need. Unfortunately, we only had a day there and we spent most of it tracking down accommodation for our next stop, so we only caught a quick glimpse of Noosa. The following morning we awoke and made our way south to Brisbane, where we said farewell to our rental car and hopped on a bus further south to Byron Bay.

Byron ...

... so close. We all had fun arm in arm singing 'Follow the yellow brick road' and 'Lions, Tigers and Bears! Oh My!!'. I bet $5 for the first person to see a Tawny Frogmouth...but no one did! If you want to see a pic of one there is a stuffed one in the pics! It was in the information centre.

... beach was beautiful, miles of white sand and surfers dodging the jelly fish! Actually there isn't that many yet as the sea hasn't warmed up - jelly fish not surfers! We were going to drive through the mountains but called in at the esplanade for breakie and didn't move. Did spent more that our daily budget on sun loungers and an umbrella for the day but it was well worth it. Max purchased Dan Browns new book so did not want to move far!
The ...

... deep (bruised bums all round). I can see why surfing can get addictive and I'll definitely give it another go. Two days was definitely long enough though because the next day we all looked like pensioners, hobbling about with aching muscles. Ouch! Then we had a few days relaxing in Byron Bay, which is probably my favourite place I've visited so far. It is a small town mostly consisting of old retired people, young hippy types and backpackers. Very ...

... pond to get the food. Those sons o guns have powerful jaws, something like 2000lbs per square inch. They make a wierd, loud, hollow sound when they chomp down. We also saw there more playful cousins the crocodiles, emus, dingos, weird birds, and we also got to feed kangaroos. It was a pretty ghetto zoo compared to the Steve Irwin Zoo that we went to last time we were here but it was still a good time. We started hitting ...

... our time in Rome; flew to Malta; experienced one day of wild thunder storms barely left the house) weekly total: 74 km total to date: 730.3 km Week 12 - left Malta and travelled to Athens; one day forgot pedometer; two resr/rain days (hardly left apartment) weekly total: 44.7 km total to date:  775 km Week 13 - explored Athens; forgot ...

... wall of the gallery. This was not a picture or a representation, but actually the entire floor of the house, cut about 6 inches from the base of the house, showing every piece of stained and battered floor covering and really giving a graphic picture of life lived in the house over many years. After a quick snack at the gallery café and after prising Hazel out of yet another book shop (she had to be restrained and removed from two yesterday), we went on to an ...

... guys last night. This ended up being a great evening. The next day I had a look round the main shopping street and then went along southbank which had a made up swimming pool and Beach in the middle of the street which is a good idea as Brisbane is very hot and quite along way from the sea. On the Thursday Enzo and I checked out the Queensland museum which was free and paid extra to go into the lower section which was more a ...

... there right at the start, and it was fantastic for me to see my mate & his wife so happy.

Katie warmed to them both instantly, and vice versa, so we had a great chat outside, lubricated by a few of Australia's finest cold beers, and talked until it was nearly dark. Good times.

We decided to go into town for some food, and they recommended a great little restaurant called the Power ...