Brisbane/Noosa

Arrived in Brisbane on monday to a cold rainy morning, 13 degrees! Luckily this was only temporary though and since then it's been 20+ degrees every day. It does still get cold at night though, cold enough to need jeans and a top (I guess it is winter here!). I spent a few days in Brisbane looking round town and exploring, it's a nice city with paths all the way along the river and lots of parks, some things about australia have been surprising though:

- Beer and alcohol in general is really expensive, you can only buy it in off licenses and it's about 10 pounds for six bottles of beer!
- A lot of food is expensive in the supermarket (bread, meat, cheese etc.) to the point that it's actually cheaper to go out to eat than it is to cook something yourself, eating out is quite cheap though)
- if you go in a big supermarket or shop with a backpack on, they ask to look in it when you leave, to make sure you haven't taken anything - they seem to just have a cursory glance, was quite off-putting the first time though.

I also randomly met Carys and Jo from my year at Uni in my hostel which was quite strange! Anyway, after a few days I headed up to Noosa, about 2.5 hours North up the coast. It was really nice up there with some awesome beaches and beautiful scenery. I met two primary school teachers from sunderland and a crazy dutch guy and we went surfing in the morning and then for a walk round the nature reserve in the afternoon - as we walked along the beach there were loads of blue crabs that ran down to the water in front of us and buried themselves in the wet sand. At breakfast in Noosa there were loads of wild parrots that live inside a huge gumtree at the hostel that kept landing on your table and squawking, trying to get you to give them food. They got a bit annoying after a while but it's definitely an improvement on pigeons and seagulls!
I'm back in Brisbane now and I'm just getting ready to fly to Vanuatu tomorrow, can't wait for warm evenings again...