Australia, Brisbane 25/5/14

Brisbane! It was great to be home. We only stayed for a few days, but they were jam-packed. We crashed at Espie's again as soon as we arrived, which was really fun. He took us to a board games night the day we got there. I've never really played many complicated board games before aside from Monopoly, so it was really interesting. We enjoyed it immensely and I wanted to buy pretty much every game. Garth wouldn't let me because he thought the pieces would just end up in the bilge. Disappointing. I ended up taking two card games back to the boat - Love Letter and Citadels. Love Letter is short and sweet but a lot of fun and can be played with two people. So we can still play when it's just us. Citadels can be played with two as well, but is more complicated and really long and awesome with more people. They're both tactical instead of just relying on chance, so we've all been having some epic game sessions.

We visited my sister as well, which was bitter-sweet. I haven't seen her much over the last five years what with the whole moving to New Zealand situation. In that time she has produced a small child, who is pretty much the most adorable thing on the face of the earth. Agatha is just over two now and starting to talk, which was a delightful development for us. I kept leaving messes everywhere and she would come along while I was chatting to my sister, then pick it all up and put it away to the tune of her repeating 'neat!' In a tiny little voice. Adorable! But she's going to continue growing up and my sister will keep going about her life while I'm away, which was a pretty sad thought. I want to watch the little munchkin grow up!

Sis is ridiculously amazing at entertaining and we were met with good wine, good company and a three course meal. So it was an awesome night all round and we were reluctant to say goodbye. But I guess if we want to take everybody with us we're going to need a bigger boat.

This was the appetiser my sister prepared - Brie, pears, honey and a dash of caramel, ready to go in the oven.

We did a lot of shopping in Brisvegas, slowly but steadily decreasing the budget we have left for the rest of our trip. It was mostly boat stuff though and the boat gets more and more organised every day. I picked up dry bags from my sister that I ordered online a month ago. All our clothes are now stowed away and the lounge is mostly clean! No more boxes of crap. Plus hopefully our things won't go moldy this time, assuming the dry bags work. We also cleaned out some kites and junk from under the stairs and stowed them in the cockpit in more dry bags. All of the organisation! We even organised the navstation more, filled the boat with rubber buckets and found somewhere safe to keep our shoes. Hopefully we won't get in too much trouble now when Garth's parents come to visit and see the state of the boat!

Looking down at Brisbane from Mt Cootha

Looking up at the Milky Way

It was great catching up with old friends in Brisbane but it was still sad when I realized I wouldn't see them for many years, assuming everything goes to plan. My darling Caitlin came to visit us on the boat just before we left and ended up taking away the old outboard for us because she's a legend. No more outboard on the stern! So the boat's a bit lighter now and a lot less cramped in the cockpit. Yay!

We stopped at South Stradbroke on the way to Brissie, which was fun. Sand dunes and wallabies. We went exploring on the dunes, which we had to get to via our dinghy and new outboard motor - it would have taken forever to kayak. Thank god we gave in and got a new one! There wasn't much there, but here's some pictures of sand. Because sand is awesome.

Something about this isn't right...

We've hijacked Espie for a few days to head over to North Stradbroke Island for some boat fun, so that should be a good adventure. We haven't had four people stay on the boat since the passage from NZ to Fiji last year. The boat was in an interesting state back then, seeing as we'd just moved on board. It's not perfect now, but it's good having a bit less room so we can see that a lot of our problems are gone and that we are making progress in perfecting the way everything runs. All we have to do now is find somewhere for the bikes to live...

Xxx Monique