Brisbane

Getting to Brisbane was somewhat complicated and stressful. We had to catch a different bus from a town a distance away called Gympie, and we only had 2 hours to get there after leaving Hervey Bay. What you have to try and visualise here is a massive Oz bus driving around all over Gympie trying to find the Greyhound Pioneer bus station with the minutes ticking away. Needless to say, we eventually make it and were 5 minutes late, but thankfully the Greyhound bus was running half an hour behind schedule.

In Brisbane we were met by Jo's uncle Barry and cousin Andrew. During our time in Brisbane, Barry very kindly put us up.

I think one of the highlights of Brisbane was going to Dream World. What were we doing there? - I hear you all ask. Well, on one of Jo's earlier trips to Brisbane, she had promised Andrew that next time she was back she would take him to Dream World. We had a fantatsic day there and went on virtually all the rides. Luckily we didn't have any accidents and only came away from the park with a bit of crooked neck after one of the more brutal roller coaster ride experiences.

The last leg of our journey back to Sydney was done in style. Even before I went out to Oz, I had heard of car/van relocations, allowing you to drive a vehicle for a hire company to a destination where that vehicle was needed urgently. I managed to do the peachiest of deals in Brisbane, in that I got to drive a 6 birth mobile home down to Sydney for $5 a day. There was one catch - it had to be down there within 3 days. The company, Maui, even threw in $150 worth of fuel, but in the end, we only spent $144. So the total cost was just $15 for the three days, and this provided us not only with transport down to Sydney but also accomodation.