Despite appearances this isn't the Gold Coast, this is the Sunshine Coast a couple hours north on the otherside of Brisbane. The Sunny Coast is a more laidback and less commercial version of the Gold Coast but with 100km of equally stunning beaches. And this is one of its best - the main beach of the gorgeous resort town of Noosa, and about our 500th beach of the trip. We only had time to spend a few hours here before heading back into Brisbane and we spent all of it on the beach, but Noosa also has a great little national park on the headland there which is really nice to stroll through.

If the colour of that water looks a little gross, it's because it is. This area has had an excessive amount of rain recently and swollen rivers have washed a lot of crap into the sea.

Jellyfish are not uncommon on these beaches, and while a sting is rare it can really friggin' hurt but is harmless.

Some kid thought they made a great addition to his sand castle though hahaha! He and his mate spent ages looking for them along the beach. They have no stingers in their 'head' (for lack of a better word) and so holding them by the head doesn't sting you - it's the tentacles you gotta watch out for.

I can only imagine what those apartments on the hill must be worth.

Yup, just another day in the life. We're now in Brisbane (my first ever home away from home) until we fly out to Central America on Sunday, and bloody hell it's good to be back! :)

My first day back in Brisbane after I left it five-and-a-half years ago having lived here and loved it for 19 months. And what better place to start than where I lived hahaha!

177 Petrie Terrace :)

This is the freeway outside my front door, and in the background Suncorp Stadium (I saw many a rugby match there for free through work) and the day before I left there was a three-car pileup out here - sweet ;)

Second stop was Mount Coot-tha, the highest peak in Brisbane with a great lookout over the city from the top. There's also some good mountain biking trails throughout here so I busted my balls getting up here on the bike a few times, just to hoon back down again :)

While Mount Coot-tha is a good lookout, in the morning the position of the sun is such that the views are pretty hazy. So we then drove here to Mount Gravatt instead.

The CBD and Brisbane River as seen from Story Bridge. Ever since leaving Brisbane I've missed it terribly; the climate is right up my alley (hot), the city is gorgeous, it's laidback, very cycle friendly - it's just an amazing city really in my humble opinion. If I was ever to end up back in Australia, it'll be a coin toss between here and Sydney!

After returning our little hire car (with the strawberry still stuck on its roof, well and truly baked on by the sun now) we ventured along the river and into the City Botanic Garden, a lush oasis slongside the river. It was a typical summer day in Brisbane with the mercury reaching the early 30s (90s for the Americans) and Kristina was sucking down the H2O hard!

From there we had a good meander through the CBD.

This is Queen Street Mall, a pedestrian-only zone and Brisbane's predominant retail district featuring shopping centres, hotels, restaurant and coffee shops, cinemas, clothing, music, jewellery and book stores, news agencies, banks, and blah blah blah.

King George Square looking towards the Brisbane City Hall, considered to be one of Brisbane's finest buildings. This public square was named in honour of King George V shortly after he kicked the bucket in 1936.

While fairly compact, they still manage to squeeze in open green spaces and a few churches in the CBD - good stuff.

After gallivanting around town all day, we later had a gallivant around South Bank on the opposite side of the river. It was pretty quiet with it being a school night, but on weekend it's all go.

The South Bank Parklands is a beautiful swath of green park along the river consisting of a mixture of rainforest, water, grassed areas and plazas as well as features such as the riverfront promenade (which I used to scream along on my bike while avoiding pedestrians - great fun! ;)

This London Eye lookalike wasn't here when I was - just one of several new things I've noticed going on. This is the Wheel of Brisbane, opened in 2008 and due to remain until later this year.

The Nepal Peace Pagoda (which I've animated for fun to give it more of a 3D feel). Back in 1988, Brisbane hosted the six-month World Expo '88 in which Nepal agreed to participate. This pagoda was constructed for the event from indigenous Nepalese timber that 160 Nepalese families worked on for two years to handcraft its diverse elements - bloody hell! The Pagoda quickly became one of the most visited and photographed pavilions (one of many such international pavilions) at the Expo.

And this is the awesome Streets Beach, a major feature within the parkland. This man-made beach comprises a lagoon with enough water to fill five Olympic swimming pools, with sand beaches, palm trees, rocky creeks, and subtropical trees and exotic plantings! When it's 30+ degrees and you can't be arsed heading out to the coastal beaches, this place is the next best thing :)

View of the CBD from South Bank. While driving and wandering around today I've noticed several new developments about the place: several new buildings, new pedestrian areas, more cycle lanes and shared pathways, new freeways and so forth. Good to see there's plenty of money being poured into the city!

Over the course of my 19 months living in Brisbane I clocked up 5,200km on my bike, and by the time I left there were very few places left that I hadn't cycled through at least once. In the almost-six years I've been away, cycle paths have cropped up everywhere (there are apparently 900km of them in total throughout the city now). This here is the start of my favourite one back in the day. I rode this many a time and established a 100km route that I did a couple times (when I was in the mood for some punishment - photos and whatnot from the first time I did it are here) and I was eager to ride it again, though not the full 100km route, just 50km hehe. I left Kristina to it for the day (because despite coming from Texas where it often gets close to 40 degrees, she doesn't like 30-degree heat) and hired me a pair of wheels! I haven't touched a bike since leaving Texas five months ago, so I wasn't sure how the legs would handle it but regardless it felt bloody good to be back on a ball-chaffing bicycle seat hahaha! In the 30-degree sun I jumped on a train bound for Keperra and got started. Those yellow bars there had a little more paint on them last time.

This path is 95% off-road but does cut through a bit of suburbia here and there. When I buy a house I'm going to park my huge-ass boat out the front too, and probably give it a better name than YT555Q.

I gotta say I've missed hooning around under the Brisbane sun, but even so, any shade is good shade!

This about sums it up - nice! Back in the day it was more bushy with a lot of overgrowth going on, but then some dirty bastard started hiding out in them and chasing female cyclists hahaha! So the powers that be got rid of the overgrowth and he went elsewhere (to chase female cyclists).

Nice to see some water in these things. Queensland was having its worst drought on record when I lived here, and then Brisbane had two floods after I left and just recently they've had a lot more rain. The Lord taketh away and giveth back again in a big way.

I nearly ran this little fella over - didn't even notice him until he darted out of my way at the last second (and then just sat there watching me take photos).

With the legs still going strong I made it to the 1100-hectare Boondall Wetlands, which are a lot wetter now (and funny-smelling) than I remember.

The last time I was in here I ran over two snakes hahaha! That's obviously not what that sign means but it might as well. The first was long, skinny, and black, and looked like tar seal. It wasn't until he was just inches in front of me that I realised he wasn't tar seal hehe. Ten minutes later and I come across the second, a bright green one this time, and I did see him in advance but I was doing about 40km/h and couldn't avoid him. I tried to bunny hop over him instead but fucked it up completely and landed on him hehe. My first and only snakes ever (outside of a zoo) and I run them both over with my bike ;)

After about 50kms I made it to my planned destination of Shorncliffe - a sleepy little suburb on the sea. By now my legs were pretty stuffed whereas before leaving Texas 50km was nothing. Priority one after this trip will be getting those boys back up to fitness!

Later on, when people with a more normal life than ours were finishing work, we met up with my mate Adrian who took me under his wing (or was forced to) when I was working here as a graduate fresh out of university. We all ended up being on the lash for about six hours hehe, and the end of the night became a bit of a blur though I do remember winning a game of pool, but have no idea what the melon pieces in the plastic container were all about.

Well after yesterday's glorious sunshine, today it bloody pissed down which sucks because I had wanted to wander around Fortitude Valley for a bit, maybe take a cruise on the river ferry, and definitely have a swim at South Bank. But instead we didn't do any of that, though to be honest we were both quite hung over from last night so any wandering we might have done would have been minimal and the river ferry is probably not a good idea in that state hehe. The rain did stop later in the day so we wandered over to South Bank anyway. This is the mini rainforest there - nice!

Just as we were contemplating jumping into the lagoon, the heavens opened and dowsed us hehe, and we ran for the nearest restaurant we could find and called it dinnertime. And before you say "Well you were going to get wet in the lagoon anyway weren't ya, dipshit?!", well it's our stuff (including my camera) that needed to stay dry and there wasn't anywhere sheltered and within view of the beach to stash it.

The sky cleared up while we were eating so at least we got a nice evening stroll. And that is that for Brisbane, and for Australia. As much as I'd like to stick around longer, tomorrow at 11am we start the 26-hour haul to Panama (with a 13-hour flight up front to Los Angeles; hell!) to start our two months in Central America - booya!