Long time no post!

I see that my last post is a bit of time ago.
We have left Earlie Beach to travel to the next stop on our Itinerary...Hervey Bay.
To get there, we were booked on an overnight train from Earlie to Hervey. We had a sleeper car berth. This consists of three bunks stacked on top of each other. They are so close together, you feel like you must be in the bunk of a submarine. You had to roll on your side to wiggle out of it, since you could not sit up. Our third bunkmate was a Korean woman who was on her "Big Trip". She slept from before we got on, right through till after we were up and dressed the next morning. She was travelling the full 32 hours from Cairns to Brisbane! Yowza, that's a long trip. It's partly why we broke up our trip, so we wouldn't get exhausted with just travelling. The train is not a fast one, going an average speed of about 50kms and hour, sometimes faster, mostly slower. In the daylight, it's great, because you really get a chance to see the landscape. A very dry and cooked looking one it is too. The earth that shows under the grass is sometimes a most unreal colour of red, or a dry sand white that is deeply eroded.
We left at about 9pm and sat in the darkened car, just to watch the nightime landscape and a most unbelievable starry sky! The milky way was super bright and came all the way down to the horizon. The Southern Cross was right there too!
I've noticed as we travel south, that the sunset comes a little earlier with each 400kms. We saw sunsets at 6ish in Cairns and in Brisbane by 5:30ish aty the latest.
We arrived in Maryborough at about 11am the next morning and travelled by bus to Hervey Bay, since the Bay is about 30km from the train line.
Our hostel was GREAT! cabins amidst a sub topical garden, very nice amenities and friendly patrons.
We had great walks along a 16km Esplannade and some great meals. You meet the most surprising residents. A Swedish couple who were running a most lovely cafe where we had a great Charcuterie lunch.
There were a great deal of Scandinavians who settled this particular area, so seeing their pioneer museum had several layers of interest. Boy, people had to work sooooo hard just to eke by!
We bused into Maryborough one day and visited their historic sites. We took a riverboat tour with a Captain that surely was Santa on his summer job. A little questionable taste on some of his jokes, but fun nonetheless.
I got to see dolphins swimming in the bay about 40meters off shore! A pelican walked out of the water almost beside us and posed very graciously for me.
We moved on from Hervey Bay after 3 days and came down to Brisbane, the last stop on this train trip.
We were in a YMCA Brisbane for three days and have transferred to the YHA. The first three days was for the luxury of our own bathroom and control of the TV. The rest is for the room and that there is enough to do without worrying about the TV. There seems to be the Simpson's on at any time of day here.
We have tons of things to do in this culturally active city.
More later.