Sleeeeepy!!

Have only slept one hour in the last 48 hours so am feeling very tired ..

in fact I am uploading photos onto facebook and just fell asleep at the computer waiting for them to upload.. nearly headbutted the keyboard... oops, hence I decided to come on here and update you to attempt to keep me awake!
I left Noosa on 18th Feb, it was sad to say goodbye but I was ready to move on. Mark and Sadie walked me down to the bus stop - the bus arrived just over one HOUR late but bless them, they waited with me, we sang and danced and they kept me company. The bus journey to Brisbane was fairly short and the transit centre at Brisbane is dingy as.... reminded me of the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth! I put my backpack in a locker and then spent about 5 hours exploring the city - Anzac Square, the main shopping streets, Post Office Square, South Bank, the boardwalk, the Queensland Museum of Modern Art etc. etc. I thought South Bank was really nice - especially Stanley Plaza and the little cafes down by the boardwalk etc. The Museum of Modern Art was a lot better than I expected - there were a few odd things like a selection of videos by some random bloke of things like him stealing soap out of a public toilet, trying to lift his mum, being tickled etc..! There was a special Asia Pacific exhibition which was cooooel - including a reggae room which I loved and also there was a childrens art centre which I spent ages in, admiring their drawings in the scrapbooks.
At about 5.30 Eric and Sue picked me up from the city centre and took me to Mount Coot-tha lookout point just before it got dark. We watched the lights go on accross the city, it was lovely and Eric and Sue are really great people. They devote so much of their time to charitable and community causes, it's very admirable. After we'd finished at the lookout, we went for dinner - steak and lobster! The best feed I've had for ages! They drove lots of scenic routes and showed me places like Kangaroo point etc. Their house is lovely, they built it themselves as Eric is a builder, and they have 2 dogs - Jessie and Hannah so I was happy!! I had one of their spare bedrooms with a DOUBLE BED and they gave me proper towels which made me very very happy! We got up early-ish on Friday and set off on an exploring mission to loads of different places - mostly hinterland villages but also to Maroochydore and to some other seaside places on the way back to Brisbane. Eric is very knowledgable about brisbane and the surrounding areas so made a brilliant tour guide and I had a lovely time with them, they dropped me to the airport and I flew to Adelaide. The flight was delayed so I made the last shuttle bus from the airport to Adelaide city centre by the skin of my teeth and arrived at my hostel at 10.30pm. What a SHITHOLE. Filthy, terrible service, tiny, dingy, full of drunken idiots just generally a nightmare. Anyway darren (who I met in Anna Bay) was in Adelaide and we'd said we'd meet up for a drink so I rang him and we met and he told me the Fringe festival was on in the centre of the city so we headed there and then went to some pub/bar and had some beers then went to his hostel which was much nicer than mine to watch tv - which ended up being some random film about a killer whale, inbetween ridiculously long adverts for some dance craze called Zumba! We stayed up til about 7am at which point lucky Darren went to bed but I had decided I needed to do some research about the great ocean road as Darren had made me realise how huge the distance is between Adelaide and Sydney (which I need to be in by Thursday) so I struggled on with no sleep! I decided hitchhiking was a no-go due to my strict schedule and the fact there were LOTS of weirdos and sleazebags in Adelaide! I had put up lots of adverts on hostel noticeboards and on gumtree and globalgossip to ask if anyone was doing the great ocean road and had a spare seat in their car... but it seemed everyone was leaving too early or too late and im on a super tight schedule... or were contacting me to tell me they were good in bed if i fancied using their services before i left (backup for my decision about the hitchhiking!!) There are no public transport buses or trains that do the great ocean road and the coaches/buses that do the great ocean road charge in excess of $300!!! So I made the decision I would get the nightbus that night from Adelaide to Melbourne and that, if I can afford it, I will take a day trip to the main attractions of the great ocean road. Once Darren had surfaced from his bed, we went off to explore the beaches of Adelaide and to see a lookout point... or what we thought was a lookout point but turned out to be a park! haha. Anyway we had a lovely day and I left about 8pm on the nightbus to Melbourne! I arrived in Melbourne at 7am (i got about 1 hr sleep on the bus) and it took me about 2 hours and lots of walking with my huge backpack to find a hostel with a spare bed! have ended up in a YHA in North Melbourne but it seems nice enough! I am just waiting for 1pm when I can crawl into bed for some sleep and to recharge my batteries for exploring the city! Whoopeee! xx