Cyclone craziness

Sooo... I said goodbye to Sydney. Another fairly uneventful monster bus, main noteworhty points being the lady across from me crying at intervals throughout the journey, foolishly caught her eye as she was getting off so she felt the need to explain to me why she was crying - because her son was in jail at the place she was going on the bus and she was about to see him for the first time. Cheerful. Had some amazing spag bol at a service station... perfected my sleeping-on-bus stylings by using a pillow and several jumpers, pretty comfy.

Got to Brisbane, checked into hostel. Pretty nice, although very small room. Got chatting to some guy and discovered he was from Peckham rye, much to my excitement of course. Henceforth he will be known as 'Peckham boy' (hope you're reading this, Alan!) Err, what did I do in Brisbane? Can't be bothered to break down into days, but during the 3 days I was there I went to the botanic gardens (especially in search of the 'wedding garden' which I may or may not have found and may or may not have just been another patch of green, all very confusing), looked at (but didn't go on - learned my lesson from the terror of the one in Brussels) the Brisbane big wheel, went to the man-made inner-city beach, 2 art galleries, several tea shops to read my book, shopping, cinema (to see Dear John, great cheesey romcom). Think that's about it. Highlight was a hilarious and very random night out with Peckham boy involving bumping into someone he knew, crashing his friend's 21st birthday party and eating copious amounts of the free food, me then teaching various party-goers the dance to Poker Face (which I only realised as I was doing it that I don't actually know at all but discovered if you dance convincingly enough people believe you know what you're talking about), sneaking everyone back to the hostel, meeting another teacher (not that I'm a teacher anymore!!) from Bucks, and general good silly times.

After 3 days in Brisbane I then (despite all my better judgement / everyone I spoke to telling me not to) got the bus to Airlie Beach (where you get to the Whitsunday Islands from) which was hit by a cyclone the other day. The bus driver scared the pants off everyone by saying we wouldn't be able to buy water / food so to stock up before we arrived, which everyone did, then we get here and the pick-up guy from the hostel was highly amused by this as everything was fine. Of course in typical Jules bungle fashion, I managed to have booked (and paid for) to stay at the one hostel that's very slightly out of town and thus has no electricity still. But it's supposed to be back on today, and the up side to this is that I have a 4-person room to myself which is very luxurious (well, luxurious compared to sleeping with 7 people like I was in Brisbane, not that luxurious compared to the real world, what with the lack of hot water etc!). So have headed into town to get some electricity anyways, also booking a trip to the Whitsundays probably for Thursday on some kind of crazy speed boat so even if it's choppy it just makes it more fun (/ scary!). Hostel seems nice other than lack of electricty, they have a big screen cinema thing every night (assuming elec is on) and quiz night and stuff so seems pretty friendly.

Many apologies to daddy Mc who emails lots and I always forget to credit. Thanks also to mummy Mc, Holls, Trots & Claire for their frequent contact and especially to Chrissy for braving the wrath of the Wood senior by long-distance phoning me.

Back a month today! 2 weeks of sun (hopefully!) and beaches, 2 weeks of fun with Ally and co and then beautiful Blighty. All very exciting. Lots of love xxx