Boy, does it feel good to be back on the road again! Apparently, the haze situation in Singapore has gotten really bad and what an even better reason to be out of the country (not that I have anything against it).
Travelling this time has been a little different than my previous journey – no more cheap accomodation (<SGD10) or transport or food, and I’ve got company this time round! No more #bedforone.
Budgeting this time round is a little tough because prices are so different as compared to Southeast Asia.
Accommodation in Australia is at least SGD20/ night whereas in SEA I could get a room in a decent hostel for less than SGD10. We resort to using Airbnb because prices are cheaper than what we pay for in a hostel. Hostels are at least SGD25/person.
With Airbnb, we pay about SGD16-SGD30 per person. Prices differ cause we’ve been booking our accommodation pretty last minute so we don’t exactly get the cheapest deals. BUT, we get a private room, wifi, laundry services, kitchen usage which we’re cool with the price we pay for.
We snagged a pretty good deal for our first leg of the trip in Brisbane – SGD16.50/person/night with breakfast and coffee/ tea included! I really loved that place.
I feel like I’m travelling in style now that I’m not staying in hostels. Can’t get too used to this feeling. I’m built to rough it out!
Transport is at least two times the price back home in Singapore. I paid AUD4.80 for a bus ride, without the Go Card, which was about 2.5km. So ridiculous!
Food. Man, don’t get me started. We’ve only eaten out twice so far cause we had no choice. All our meals have been homecooked in a bid to save cost plus we both really love grocery shopping! Most of our time has been spent in Woolsworth/ Coles/ Aldi. I’ve gotten my friend addicted to Pods.
SO! We’ve spent the past two weeks in Queensland – obviously can’t cover the whole of it – and had a pretty good time in Brisbane and Gold Coast. Absolutely love the cold weather! It’s about 25 degrees daytime and around 12 degrees at night? Wind chills are a killer though.
I mentioned previously how we only booked the first two nights of our accommodation in Brisbane. We loved the apartment so much that we extended another three nights, partially cause someone mistook my friend’s luggage and we had to wait on it to be delivered to her so we wanted to stay put.
Things we did in during our 6D5N in Rocklea, Brisbane:
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- Fishing in Gold Coast! (18 Sept)
Our Airbnb host was giving free tours to the first 10 people and we happened to be the 8th and 9th so we chose fishing! We both have never fished before and had a really fun time though we didn’t catch anything. We’re beginners! Can’t expect much.
- Rocklea Farmers Market/ Brisbane Market (19 Sept)
Whoo, farmers market!! I love grocery shopping and food. Walked a good ~3.2km from our apartment to 250 Sherwood Road. Strawberries were AUD0.99 a punnet, what?!?! Prices were unbelievable!
- Southbank/ Queens St
We needed to check out Brisbane’s man-made beach. I’ve been there before two years back so I brought my friend around for a quick looksie before we got bored and walked on over to Queens St to shop.
- “My Nuts In Your Ice Cream”
Robbie was pratically boasting about how good he could make ice cream so we had him give us the list of ingredients to buy so he could show us how to make it! He didn’t lie. It was really good. To me it tasted like rocky road, without the marshmallows.
- “Outback Grill!” (20 Sept)
Robbie told us they had a rotisserie and offered to fire it up for us if we wanted to use it and I told my friend we needed to do it! How often do you get a chance to roast meat in the backyard of someone’s home?!
- Learning to make Gnocchi (21 Sept)
Robbie was feeding us too well. He spoke of homemade gnocchi, pan-fried salmon, and a delicious sauce of cherry tomatoes being broken down in olive oil accompanied by peas. Of course, if you speak well of food you’ll need to prove it. Which he so kindly made dinner for us and it was deeee-lish!
After a good six days, we finally moved on from Brisbane to Gold Coast. To be honest we didn’t see much sights in Brissy. We were so comfortable staying at the apartment and didn’t help that we had a wonderful host who made our stay so pleasant.
Robbie, Justin and Nicole, were taught how to play Kaboo – a game I learnt from Caspar/ David when I was staying at a farm in Krabi. We had so much fun from it.
Our activities have been majorly food-centric. I kind of think we flew all the way out here to eat and eat and eat, rather than doing touristy stuff
I’ll touch more about my time in Gold Coast in the next update.
Till then!
Bed for One 
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