Gold, Jerry.

We finally made it to paradise! Surfer's Paradise that is! It's warm and sunny and on the Gold Coast. YAY! Last night we went to a club called The Bedroom. It is a place where hot, scantily clad women abound. The music is bumpin and the strobe lights are aplenty. We got in free with our hostel and the first drink was on the house. This is the first time we've been out in several weeks and it was very entertaining. We also have a six-share dorm room to ourselves last night. Things are looking up. :)

Yesterday, we did a bus tour of Brisbane. Such an awesome city! It's built on the Brisbane River and is so modern and clean. We got off the hop-on, hop-off bus at the Botanic Garden just in time to catch a free, hour tour by a volunteer. We were lucky enough to have two volunteers and only three tourists (including me and B). We saw the tropical rainforest, the bonsai gardens, the Japanese Gardens, the fern area, and the herb garden. We saw plants, trees, lizards, flowers. We tasted bright, pink honey suckle flowers, smelled a unique variety of magnolia tree, and tasted herbs. It's so much more fun to be lead around by someone who knows what they're talking about - especially when it's FREE! Yay! We also went to the beautiful state library! A very modern building with open balconies on all four floors that look out onto the ground. (It's hard to explain, but just trust me that it's really cool.) Included in the bus tour was access to the CityCat - the water bus that goes all up and down the river. Very, very cool! We got on around 5:00 and rode up to the mouth of the river. There were huge, expensive houses and tall, glass buildings all along both sides. We stood out on the bow and breathed in the cool air and took some great pix. By the time the boat turned around, it was starting to get dusky, so as we came back to the city, the sky was dark and the buildings and bridges were brightly lit up. Amazing!

The day before that was all driving... but I did buy some material and have been hand sewing a purse. It's purple and brown and stripy. I like it... The reason we were driving all day was because we went to the Carnarvon National Park area. We took a long side trip to hike the trail, but when we got there, it rained on us all night and the trail was too muddy, and the weather too cold to be an enjoyable trip... So we drove to the middle of no where and camped for $34 for pretty much nothing...

The day before that, we CAMPED UNDER A BRIDGE in Emerald, Australia... Yes folks, a new height to our travels... We are officially very homeless. :) After we woke up from the dogs "next door" barking... we drove out to Sapphire and did some fossicking (digging for precious stones)... The bloke at the shop was, in our minds, the perfect mold of an Aussie - really friendly, wearing a big hat, short shorts, hiking boots and a collared shirt. He was an older, less commercial version of Steve Irwin. I really wish I had of taken a picture of him! After looking aimlessly for about an hour, the dude showed us how it was done. He came out and got on all fours and found a little zircon in about 30 seconds. After that, we had a better idea of what we were looking for, so we found several minuscule zircons and one tiny sapphire. Score!