An update an the job front. Chris is now doing enhancements to the ASI website, which is more interesting, but he has to work 9 to 5. I've signed up with a couple of temping agencies and have 3 days work next week at a Japanese book store - designing a spreadsheet to hold their invoice data. Chris's earnings from last week have already been spent on a new gear box for the car. :-(

Today we went for a lovely walk along the coast to Coogee beach and tomorrow we're going for a cruise around the Sydney harbour.

We've been in Sydney for a few days now. We're actually staying in Bondi, about two minutes walk from the beach. Apart from the obligatory sightseeing (beaches, harbour, bridge, Opera house, etc.) we've been getting ourselves organised to get jobs, including finding accommodation where we're happy to settle for a while, getting a bank account, registering with the tax office, and setting up interviews.

Today I had an interview at 8:15 am with ASI and walked straight from the interview into a job building PCs at 8:30 am. Basically, the customer order form and a box of components are given to me, and I need to screw it all together and install the OS. This may just be a temporary role, since the managing director has said he wants to find something for me to do which will use more of my skills. I won't hold my breath. The best bit about the job is the hours -- 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, which will get me home nice and early.

Fi has a couple of interviews with office temping agencies tomorrow.

Noosa was lovely and we enjoyed walking round the national park spotting koalas and trying out body boarding on the beach. The waves weren't very large but we did manage to ride a couple after a lot of splashing about.

We then drove south to Brisbane and had a couple of days to explore the city. The first day we walked around and saw lots of historic buildings and explored the revamped south bank of the river which has a man-made beach and swimming lagoon. The weather was sunny and on the second day we hired bicycles and cycled along the river to the University of Queensland.

We decided to ignore the Gold Coast completely and drove inland to Springbrook National Park. Here we had a whole YHA mountain lodge to ourselves as it obviously isn't the most popular spot in winter. We had a great view from the mountain top across the countryside and could see the skyscrapers of Surfer's Paradise in the distance. While walking in the national park we were startled by a big monitor jumping out in front of us, and then by a large green snake which we walked past very quickly. We're still not sure what type it was, but we're hoping it wasn't one of the many deadly varieties.

After crossing the border into New South Wales we drove back to the coast to Bryon Bay. This was a busy backpacker town with lots of surfing beaches. We had a surfing lesson and I was terrible, but Chris managed to stand up briefly a few times.

We're now on our way down to Sydney driving through New England and the Hunter Valley wine region. We should be in Sydney by the end of the week. Chris has a job interview (either building PCs or installing ADSL) lined up and I will be visiting some temp agencies.

Here are the latest photos - featuring Fraser Island, Noosa, Brisbane and Springbrook National Park.

The last week has seen us spend a couple of days in the cloudy rainforest of Eungella National Park, best known for the chance to spot duck-billed platypus in the wild. We waited quietly by the riverside at dusk on two consecutive days, and were not disappointed on either occassion. Unfortunately with the light fading the photographs haven't come out too well, but you'll have to believe us. :-)

From there we headed further south, first breaking our drive at Rockhampton for a couple of nights (beef capital of Australia, but the city itself has seen better days) then arriving at Hervey Bay. We had a luverly three days on Fraser Island, taking a three-day camping tour with the Fraser Island Company. Fraser Island is the largest sand island the the world, and the only place where you can find entire rainforests growing in sand. We can highly recommend this for the scenery, wildlife, and swimming in the lakes. Okay, maybe the swimming was a little chilly, but it is mid-winter.

We're now in Noosa for a couple of days, on the Sunshine Coast just north of Brisbane.

We've got a little bit behind with posting photos. Bad Chris, bad. I blame the fact that the Internet shuts down at the weekend in Rockhampton. Here are some photos relating mostly to the stuff we wrote a week ago.