Back to base camp

Upon arriving back in Melbourne, we spent three delightful days kicking back with our Mel and Damien, our friends from the Grampiens. They kindly put us up for several evenings, and we had some very enjoyable dinners with them, including a memorable meal at Melbourne’s Moroccan Soup Bar. The restaurant was a little closet-like venue, packed with atmosphere and serving up a set four-person multi-course banquet of phenomenally good food. Our days were spent doing things like baking, doing laundry, and figuring out where we would head to next. We also spent a great deal of time coughing, hacking, and blowing our noses, as by this time Glen was getting over his cold, which I had just caught.

Due to the cost of train tickets, we decided to skip Sydney and flying directly to Brisbane instead of taking a multi-leg train journey north. The plan is to use Brisbane as a launching pad for small side trips around that area. We will stay along the Gold Coast and the southern part of the Sunshine Coast until it comes time to fly to Auckland.