We've been in Brisbane for a couple days staying with John and Brenda and it's been great. We've seen koalas in a nearby park (Brenda has a 100% koala-finding success rate!) and had a quiet New Year's Eve losing at cards with them and friends. With their help we completed all the drudgery necessary for our trip; opened bank accounts, purchased a car (and practiced driving on the wrong side), bought insurance etc. etc. We didn't get much sightseeing done here as Eastern Australia has been deluged with the most rain they've had in 15 or 20 years. Beaches are closed in large part and near cyclonic conditions are being experienced near most coastal regions. Nevertheless we pushed foward driving 450 kms south to Sydney on the wrong side of the road.
At the moment we're sitting on the deck of a quaint hostel in a small, pastoral town with subtropical rainforests listening to frogs, watching hundreds of fruitbats and generally resting.
