Resting, leaving, travelling, finding something and then that great feeling that returns to being just beyond reach.

On then, from Nimbin, we drove to Byron bay. We had breakfast in Lismore on the way, surveying yet more of the damage and getting out quick from that unpleasant little berg. We planned to stay in Byron bay, in a nice little hotel, but couldn't find a one when we arrived and logged on the Internet to look them all up. So we were slightly defeated, and I decided fuck it, lets just drive to Brisbane. So we drove the three odd hours to Brisbane looking for a hotel. We stopped at the airport, thinking cheap accommodation would proliferate, but none was obvious.

I drove into Brisbane, right into the city from the mad 5 lane freeways, highways and byways. We parked on Anne st. in an underground car park in the City centre, right outside the Museum of Brisbane and walked around for an hour, staring at skyscrapers and looking for hotels.

We asked in a Holiday inn, and they told us that from Monday to Thursday there are no beds to be had in Brisbane. So we got back in the car and drove weary to Surfer's paradise.

By this stage it was hitting half six and already pitch black outside .So somehow, without getting lost once after getting directions from a brisbanian, we found ourselves on the right road out of Brisbane back to the Gold Coast and Surfer's paradise which I had passed at 140km/h on the same freeway not three hours before.

We got to Surfer's paradise and I was shocked by the vista, the smoky silhouette of cityscape lit up so high the lights rivalled the stars. They have skyscrapers! It’s like a tiny wonderful city for stoners fresh from Nimbin, surfers and other random fun seekers devoid of pretension. None of your soy milk here.

We pulled in at a Marriott, a huge and feminine skyscraper some 40 storeys tall, flirting and teasing the skyline. It was a happy accident that we went there, as it was the only thing we could definitely navigate ourselves towards, with weary eyes on large and ever changing multi laned roads. We were doing all of the driving without streetmaps, relying on signs and intuition and petrol station wisdom to steer us right, and it always did.

So we pulled up, I parked illegally outside the Marriott. With fatigue setting in, the joy I felt at being free of the car made it feel like arriving in Makkah, and I prayed that they had a free room.

I spied the restaurant next door with a glare of hunger. I noted the bottle shop on its bottom floor for later. I was desperate to begin this night and the celebration. They had a room, incredibly, prayer answered! And more incredibly, it was super cheap, on the 12th floor, with a great view, TV, right in the centre of a town flanked by other huge sky scrapers, and we could see the whole ocean vista of the sleepy, grumpy pacific from our balcony. What a place and what a night!

We smoked and drank and drank and smoked, giggled at TV and had a great hotel night of it, with Chinese takeaways and mini bar chocolate, champagne and red wine called Promised Land, the same red my boss bought me as a goodbye before I quit my job to come here.

And it did feel like the Promised Land.

I had wine and more wine downstairs, and was sequestered with the most beautiful girl in the world in a great hotel that cost no money in a place with Paradise appropriately in the title. How could anyone not have fun in that situation?

So we had the night of nights, the best night of this whole shindig since we started, and I got hammered, we watched scarface, and digital TV, we stared in awe at the view. We went stoned shopping around the bright wide streets and overheard a drunken English couple arguing about infidelity. The girl promised that she wouldn't ever sleep with another man, that if she did stray it would only be with women. The man accepted this and they loudly declared their love for each other. Then slurping noises, then they disappeared.

We went back to the hotel and more drugs.

I fell asleep, or passed out, I don’t remember, early and elated.

I woke up well rested at eight am, somehow someway, flying in the face of the sweet abuse of smoke. I found a local post office to get stamps and envelopes before Sarah woke up. I came back and brewed up that sickly sweet single serving of hotel room coffee. I smoked a spliff and drank in the caffeine on our balcony. The rolling coast was so close I thought I could touch it, or jump in from our balcony.

In awe of the view yet again.

I woke Sarah up with coffee, and another wee smoke, and we went to breakfast, I posted off our weed and we drove back to Brisbane airport, arriving fresh some hour late and having to pay an extra 25 dollars on the car (big fucking deal).

I dropped it back, and they told me I drove 2225km in 4 days and 2 hours! How delightful to know! The entire east coast in 4 days somehow. I think we are the first to do it, and may well be the only ones ever to enjoy it, but I will beat my road miles record again before I finish this trip. It's an ambition.

We ambled around the airport, ate cardboard airport fast food. We waited around reading, took our flight home, took a cab from Melbourne airport in rush hour and arrived in our apartment, the one I told you I was sorry about never living in and was planning on not living in until some two days before when we booked the flights back to Melbourne for some reason in some internet cafe or other.

We got our keys, paid our cheapo rent, met the lovely Irish girl from Cork who was working for the place, walked to a supermarket to pick up coffee and milk and booze and the whatnots of settling down, and I find myself here.

For what seems like the first time in ages I am settling here indefinitely and have nowhere to drive tomorrow and it all feels great. What a 4 days. What a crazy 4 days. I have finally broken the seal of adventure on this trip and I'm beginning to feel like this is all worth it after all.