Currently on the train out to North Stradbroke Island (Straddie as it's called), and I can finally feel myself getting out of the funk I've admittedly been in the last few days.

When I got to Brisbane on Sunday, at first I loved it.  But then I spent the first four days here waiting on some money to come to me, and my days were spent wasted/extremely hungover, and by Thursday I still had none of the cash, I was very bored of getting drunk, and I didn't feel particularly comfortable at the house I was staying.  On top of all that, every time I'd think about doing something cheap, like a beach or a forest walk, the sky would break open and it wouldn't be possible.

Well I kinda got so into the swing of doing nothing it was even hard to push my lazy ass out of bed this morning, and in fact I slept through the first train I'd planned to take, which was up the Sunshine Coast to Noosa.  Too bad, if I'd caught the 8am train I could have spent my day wandering around Noosa Park and checking out all of the wildlife there.  When I realized this morning I'd slept in, I got all waaaah fuck this blah I'm just gonna sleep.  Instead I then looked at my options:  I could still go to Noosa, but taking a 3hour train from 11am-2pm wasn't very appealing.  I could grab a train down the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise, but it's an extreme tourist haven and the weather is still overcast so a place that just has a beach isn't great.
So I decided on North Stradbroke Island.  I'll probably be getting there too late to join any snorkel tours for the day, but hopefully by the time I get there the sun will be out and I can lay on the gorgeous beaches (seriously, google image search that shit it's incredible), and hopefully see some dolphins and turtles.  I'm too early in the year for whales unfortunately, but oh well!

This week has been interesting in a lot of ways though.  Shown me how both bad planning (spending all my money), and things you can't control (weather), can have such an impact on not only what you do in the day but your overall feelings on everything.  It's also made me think that six weeks may have been too long for my first solo trip.  Even though I've made friends along the way, it's not the same.  You can be independent all you'd like, but not having the opportunity to see someone who truly cares about you for such a long time period can be hard.  Hopefully D actually gets his passport and does come to Thailand with me in November, that would RULE.

Grrrrrr the sky has broken, its raining now and I forgot my rain poncho back at the hostel.  30 minutes til I'm off this train, fingers crossed the sun comes back out!