Rainy Queensland

Spent the last week in southern Queensland staying with friends and generally chilling out, resting up before returning to the Hustle and bustle of work and life in the UK. I'm staying about half an hour north of Brisbane near to the coast and unfortunately it's the middle of the rainy season so torrential downpours and flash floods are a relatively common occurrence. Atleast it's still warm but the heavy rain does limit what you can do. However this is the only time of year I can take enough time off work so here's to making the best of it.

I was struck by how American things are here, the layout of the town, seemingly endless shops, roads in a grid system and an overcrowding of 4x4's. You can argue that you need them here, away from the major roads and built up areas a lot of places are only reachable by dirt track and the Aussies have a fascination with touring trailers, boats etc which weigh a ton. Fuel is cheaper here, about £1 a litre. Jason has a landrover discovery too, it's newer and generally more refined than Charlie (my series 1 disco) even of it does have a few more bashes in the bumper.

We've taken things pretty easy this last week, taking a few trips to go wild swimming at a picturesque creek, offroading and to the each. Spent most evenings watching tennis until Murray lost in an epic match, gutted but hopefully he'll pick himself up and come back again. It's supposed to clear up next week and be warmer/drier, had our first fire last night with a few beers which was nice. Just under another week here before heading back to Melbourne and flying home. Also need to somehow coordinate meeting up with some family near Melbourne, that's going to be tricky. Even already thinking about my next travelling adventures but I need to budget up next winter's landrover expedition before anything else. That'll take a few grand but promises to be an amazing adventure. Anyone fancy hooking up for all or part of the trip - departing Cape Town...