Corpus Christi might be a place that old people without enough money to go to Florida retire to. It's got all the over-development, strip malls and chain restaurants but it's the wrong side of the Gulf for nice beaches. If you like oil wells though, it's a pretty cool place - I counted 26 from the beach.

In the usual way, the local wildlife seems to hang on and prosper. We saw spoonbills next to the highway and other cool birds hanging out in the estuary along with the garbage and idiots hooning around in powerboats. Suzi will elaborate on the exact details, I'm sure.

In desperation, we were reduced to eating at a chain restaurant for the first time on the trip. Olive Garden breadsticks are doughy, salty and sweet and that's about the best that could be said of the place. It could be the Italian version of the what Outback Steakhouse is to us Australians (i.e. a joke). Perhaps the only thing worse was the subway sandwiches made by a server who appeared to have swine flu judging by the number of times she coughed and sneezed while putting the ingredients together. Am I a hypochondriac because I couldn't force myself to eat something that probably had some unintended "special sauce"? Anyway, Suzi and Shelly don't appear to have come down with anything yet, so perhaps I am.

Even mini-golf was off the cards, as the desolate mall that housed the golf course was practically deserted at 10 in the morning. The only life was a class of septuagenarians practicing their tai-chi. I'm not sure that grimy concrete and dusty plastic plants are conducive to Chi flow, but I'm glad they were trying nonetheless.

Having extracted our car from the pot-holed mall carpark without breaking an axle, we headed to Austin on the back-roads rather than the interstate. This proved to be a wise decision as the roads were traffic free and took us through some bucolic countryside. The verges and fields were covered in an incredible profusion of wildflowers of all different colours. We provided some amusement to the friendly locals in a Tex-Mex lunch place before arriving in Austin.

Harvey and Leah filled us in on all the cool stuff to do in Austin and met us downtown for a great dinner at East Side Showroom. I'm normally reluctant to try new cocktails as they generally prove the value of the experience that has gone into the classics, but the hipster bartender at this joint came up with some remarkably good original creations. Definitely recommended if you are ever in this town.

The next day we headed down to South Congress to browse the stores. Or, more accurately, Shelly browsed while Suzi and I skimmed and then hung out until we were able to prise Shelly away. Many vintage items were purchased. I flew into a rage in the antique store when I realised they were trying to sell a half-brick tied onto a piece of string so had to retire to a cafe to sit it out.

Austin and hipster seem to go together like wine and cheese. At Jo's Coffee in the morning, I spied one whose look was Southern yokel/bum complete with floppy felt hat and overly large dirty overalls. He was drinking a latte and doing Sudoko. At the other table, the virtues of Ubuntu were being debated by what looked like the members of an alt-country band.

Dinner was more great Tex-Mex (captured here in Hipstamatic splendour - thanks Harvey!) followed by bat viewing at the Congress bridge. Thousands of little bats come out at sunset, watched by a pretty substantial crowd including a couple in a canoe who hurriedly backed off from under the bridge after what looked like a direct guano hit on her hair.

The next morning we had breakfast with Harvey and Leah and walked downtown to check out Art City Austin, which turned out to be more of a market than the exhibition we thought it would be. Lacking suitcase space, we didn't pick up any sculpture this time.

After a longish drive, we're now finally out of Texas and into Louisiana. Dinner was our first Cajun meal of the trip - gumbo for me and crawfish for Suzie and Shelly along with a communal helping of Hush Puppies. Good stuff although we had a little trouble understanding how cornmeal could be "freud".

Looking forward to checking out the bayous and New Orleans over the next few days.