Beach to Pool, Pool to Beach...

hello hello!

We're in Australia, just south of brisbane on the gold coast (think beachside resorts/hotels galore - a bit of marbella on steroids). It's been a glorious week of relaxing by the beach and working on our tans, which, after the last month of cold weather in NZ is just heaven. We did initially have some 'WOW - people again shock', but we're over that now :) We're staying in the Marriott (on points - woohoo!), so it's been quite an adjustment from going from our van into a room where the bathroom has about the same living space as we did for 3 months. Yes, and having a bathroom again is INCREDIBLE. We've been completely spoilt this week, going from reading by the pool, to reading on the beach, to surfing lessons (gavin is a pro-star surfer now :), and relaxing in the glorious space in our hotel room. This is also the land of cheap cheap wine, so we've been enjoying our $6 bottles of Cabernet Shiraz and Shiraz :) We've sort of planned our next steps, our direction mostly being chosen for following the warm weather to the North. We've rented a car, and after spending the weekend in Brisbane (and going to a NZ - AUS rugby match on Friday...whoohoo!), we'll head North with the final destination of Cairns (from where we'll fly to Sydney). It's a bit of a treck (all 1705 kms of it), but we have two weeks, so we think we'll make it. Our plan so far is to stop and visit the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Island, the Whitsundays and the great barrier reef and just explore and get a killer tan along the way!

Huge hugs to everyone at home
A&G