Brisbane and Byron Bay

We arrived in Brisbane in the blistering sunshine, not a cloud to be seen in the blue sky and headed straight into the city centre on the scenic route by catching a ferry along the river. Alighting at the South Bank we stopped for a swim in the open air pool, followed by lunch and a cold glass of wine in a pub.
Still not fully convinced that we had outrun the weather, despite today's heatwave (and with storms forecast for the whole of Queensland for the following day) we strolled along the riverside through the market stalls and paid a brief visit to the Gallery of Modern Art, which was unfortunately between exhibitions.

We then met up with my former housemate, Stacey and spent a couple of days with her at her apartment in Brisbane, enjoying good company, nice food a few beers and (when the rain eventually came) an afternoon at the cinema.

The next stop on our itinerary was Byron Bay, which we instantly fell in love with. It's a pretty small town with some fantastic beaches and a thriving arts scene, populated mostly by hippies, artists and backpackers. Our first day was another of glorious sunshine, so we headed straight for the beach for a couple of hours. The sea had some lovely surf, though the temperature feels somewhat more refreshing after spending so much time in the tropics. Still, it was perfect for cooling off and a real relief from the hot sun.

I was very excited to learn that Byron Bay has its very own circus school, offering amongst other things flying trapeze lessons to the general public, so I immediately booked in for a couple of classes. I also did my first ever catch! - I'll try and upload the videos at some point. It's great to be back in the swing of things (pun intended) as my circus classes are one of the things I've missed most about London.

On our second night in Byron Bay I spilled beer all over Kev's laptop keyboard, accidentally of course, but it meant we had to stay on a couple of extra days to try and get it fixed - and lucky for us we couldn't really have picked a nicer area to be stuck in. Fortunately for us both it was just a case of replacing the keyboard and not writing off the cost of the whole computer and all of its expensive music software, or I might have been coming home sooner than intended!

After a relaxing five days and nights and much delicious homemade ice cream we hit the road again bound for Sydney. We'll make a few stops along the way at Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie as we travel down the coast.

Since entering New South Wales state there has been a definite improvement in the weather but there still seems to be a lot of rain about. There have been some predictions already of a wet Christmas so we're hoping to prove them wrong!

Speak to you all soon,
Sarah & Kev xx