QUEST ASCOT VILLAGE Brisbane

... but a trip to Oz wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Bali. I can’t recommend this place enough and even what I am about to write won’t do this place enough justice. For the money minded people Bali has to be easily one of the cheapest places I travelled to so far with beers available for a £1 or less! Some of the best food from a £1 to about £5 a meal depending on how fancy you like your places to be. We stayed in Kuta for the first 4 days of the trip which is the main ...

... After 3 days in Cairns we started our trip of 2500km to Sydney. We spend a night in both Mission Beach and Townsville, before we arrived in Airlie Beach, Whitsunday Islands. Here we had our first snorkling experience on the Great Barrier Reef. With our first dive my mouth went open from amazement. But that is not a good idea when you are swimming in the sea. After two minutes we found the right technique and ...

... Head, another nice beach area along the coast that has a lot of rocks along the edges.. not a nice beach to lie around at, but definitely a nice area to look at! I grabbed a coffee and just walked along the beach for a while. At this point, I realized that I’d been on the go non-stop and decided it was time for a break. That’s when I decided to go back to Broad Beach and do the pancake for about 5 hours! I got some nice fish and chips on the beach and ate that while ...

... fool set that rule, oops.<br><br>Still no definite offers to rent our house, this could be bad. With no rent coming in while we are away I will have to reconsider travel arrangements, we will have to hire bicycles and a tent, and that reminds me, I still haven&#8217;t rebooked that flight from Orlando to Cancun (shhhh, surprise for Jody and Niamh), and Havana to Caracas. At last we have found a kind soul to take care of the cats so ...

... over the worst tracks ever (one named the M4) and generally having a laugh with the new people we met. Such a good time over there and it was all over far too quickly. Enjoyed star gazing at the milky way at night alongside the Dingos which was breathtaking. I think i have only ever seen the sky clear than then and that was at Brierly's. Tried to catch it on camera but unfortunally did not have the right stuff with me....

... place to make toast; · Enjoying Brisbane. This is one of those cities where you just instantly feel comfortable. Maybe it's the CityCat catamaran commuter boat trip down the river, or maybe it's the huge artificial beach and lagoon that lies alongside the Brisbane River. Whatever it is, it's one of the few "bigger" cities that we haven't wanted to leave a day after arrival; · Hanging out in Noosa, a very scenic, laid-back coastal area...think surfer dudes ...

... a bunch of torturing techniques and some waxworks of Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann and Mussolini. The most interesting thing in the whole place, actually, was a wall of photographs and documents recovered from various concentration camps, detailing bits of the Holocaust. Utterly gripping, especially since I was halfway through The Reader at the time and so had WWII on my mind anyway. So I left Surfers this morning and made my ...

... was a quicker paced run/swim than I had done before. Gordon arrived in his 4x4 truck hurrying me to get dry so we could play in puddles and get children walking along the pavement soaked. Oz folk are mad. I mean the country had brought us people like Steve Irwin, Crocidile Dundee and Rolf Harris. So this wasn't too abnormal a suggestion from one of them. So we went around for 2 hours in the rain finding big puddles to get wet in. It was suprisingly fun ...

... from the pub who had no family to see. It was great to all get together and not be alone for the day as I was really home sick! We ate cold turkey and stuffing and jumped in the pool! Not a conventional christmas but fun none the less! Boxing day we headed to another friends house and into the city to discover more of the local bars. As some idiot at the pub had decided that New Years eve was going to be an RSVP ...

... and I don&#8217;t think he was even part of the collection but rather just there to swipe a meal from a snoozing carnivore.<br><br>The sanctuary is actually pretty small, so it doesn&#8217;t take all that much time to see it all. After we made the rounds we found ourselves wandering around waiting for the return trip to the city. Once we arrived back in port we were definitely ready to retire to our room to crash and catch up on some much needed rest.<br><br>