faster! Guess what? The train was being serviced, so it was one of the same old trundlers!! Although we were due to arrive in Brisbane only half an hour later anyway, so the tilt train couldn’t have been so much faster!!!!

Brisbane
7th - 9th March

Our train finally plodded into Brisbane at around half past four, and we phoned our accommodation for the promised pickup from the station, only to be told that an employee had gone home with the van keys, so he couldn’t pick us up and we’d have to get the train. Great!! We had found a studio apartment for about the same price as a hostel room so we were quite looking forward to getting there and relaxing, but it seemed like it would be a little longer! At least the local train

was free though, as it was included in our ticket, and to be honest, although it wasn’t particularly new, it was efficient, and seemed just as fast if not faster than the Sunlander train we’d arrived on!!! After a little wandering around we found our apartments, and checked in with the owner at his nearby hostel. When we got to the actual apartment though, it was small, dark and worst, not clean. Now we hadn’t expected a palace at that price, but this was just not on, and we told the caretaker so. He phoned the owner and we got moved to a family one - much bigger, brighter and cleaner - bonus!! After a quick trip to the local supermarket I was making full use of the kitchen preparing a feast!!! We washed it down with a bottle of delicious Aussie sparkling white, the first one we’d had. A quick flick through the telly channels convinced us that we didn’t need to turn it on again, so we had a chilled evening with just music and caught up with some diaries and photos, as we knew we’d have good