Bow Thai

It so happens that Emily and I were passing the world's largest sand island last week - Fraser Island (Named after the European who perished there after getting a spear in the back sometime in the 1800s). 120km from top to bottom it is composed of lots of sand, and covered with rainforest, scrub, and a few freshwater lakes. So we shelled out a bit of cash for a two day tour of the island aboard a 24 seater 4WD bus.

We were told all about the island's harrowing history, from the Aboriginals who were killed and displaced from the island to the logging industry that spent about 120 years felling trees on the island. We did a few small walks in the forest, and swam in the lakes. The highlight (for me at least) was visiting the wreck of the Maheno which ran aground on the island in the 1930s and has been rusting away on the beach ever since.

Now we're in Brisbane, having driven just over 3000km since we picked up the car in Cairns about four weeks ago. It feels good to be back in a city - with a population of 1.5 million Brisbane is Australia's third largest. The hostel we're staying in is pretty nice, and everything had been going to plan apart from today - Christmas Day.

We had left it too late to book a Christmas Day dinner at any of the nice hotels in town, and it turned out that almost all of the restaurants were closed today. However, the hostel was doing a barbecue so we decided to go with that. This was a complete let-down as the veggie option was comprised of a lethargic salad with limp white bread (The meat-eaters did not fare much better; their burgers and sausages were pre-cooked and looked pretty charred and dry).

Disheartened, we went for a drive around the city and out to a nearby hill with a view over the city. Very pleasant - about 30 degrees Celsius and slightly cloudy. On the way back we found a supermarket that was open and full of shoppers dashing around for custard and other items that they had forgotten to get already. Stocked up with food, we returned to the hostel and fed ourselves up. We milled around for the afternoon and made phone calls to family back home.

This evening we took a walk around the centre of Brisbane. Turns out that the Chinese and Thai restaurants are all open! So we just had a very nice meal at Bow Thai.

Merry Christmas!