Alice’s Gap Year Travels

Surfers Paradise is the Vegas of Australia.

It pretty much consists of bars, clubs, casinos, the beach, sky-scrapers, shops, BMW’s and convertables. We met loads more aussies here too from all over as it is where they all come to party and relax for a long weekend. Our hostel was called Island Backpackers and it had a pool and jacuzzi – YAAAAY! Having settled in we decided it was about time we tried to gain some kind of structure for the rest of our time in Oz so headed to the travel agents – Peter Pans 🙂 A bloke called Mark sat us down and sorted everything out for us in amongst telling us his entire life story and gossiping about his boss – we went in there most days as they had free internet and in 5 days his hair colour went from blonde to bright blue to black – he was pretty jokes. So now we have got everything booked including accomodation all the way up to Cairns which is pretty exciting and as Mikaela (swedish) has got a 1 yr working visa here she has decided to join us along the way so now we are officially a 3! 😀

The next day we decided to hit DREAMWORLD along with our mate Jenni – it’s the largest themepark in Oz! So much fun but it was soooooo hot and we were sweating buckets all the way round, nice. Our favourite ride was Tower of Terror and they also had a wildlife area where we got to stroke/feed Kangaroos which was really cute.

On the Wednesday it rained – suprise suprise (I suppose it’s great for the country as they are currently having a massive drought but not so good for us lot trying to get a tan! From the weather it seems we’ll have a permenant raincloud following us up north, BOO!) So anyway – we decided to go shopping (or should i say bargin hunting!) That night, each armed with a new outfit we hit Caville St., the main strip, with ‘Plan B’ pub crawl – it started at 5pm which was lame at first as it was a bit too early to start but by the 4th bar we were loving it – there were games, free drinks and pizzaaaa. Our favourites were ‘The Bedroom’ and ‘Sin City’ – we met loads of great people and ended up having a really good night 🙂

With a TV in our dorm we had a ‘girls night in’ one night too, watching Dream Girls and Coyote Ugly and being ‘Surfers Paradise’ we did manage to get to the beach for a few hours before the clouds came in! …This morning we have arrived in Brisbane, we’re only staying 2 nights so went down to the South Bank today and have looked around the Museum already.

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Nimbin was wierd.

We got picked up by one of ‘Jims Alternative Tour’ buses and an old South African guy called Ivan wearing a baggy vest and no shoes checked us onto the bus. As he drove he played crazy loud music and talked of his hatred for all authority and religion and promoted free love, and doing whatever the hell you want…

We stopped at a pub along the way then reached Nimbin where everything smells of inscense and ‘pot’ to put it bluntly. Hippies galore, lots of little shops and stalls etc. From Nimbin we went driving through narrow lanes up into the forests which was fun as there is a massive hill which Ivan told us took 5mins 11secs to get down from start to finish (he has found a song exactly that length and so at the top he puts it on and then speeds all the way to the bottom and stops dead as the music finishes – clever stuff!) Anyway in the forest we went to this man called Paul’s house which is a crazy shack covered in fairylights in the middle of the forest overlooks a big lake with lillys in where we ate wild macadamia nuts and freash melon – very pretty but so strange and on walking through the forest i got bitten on my toe by some crazy bug which was horrid. Paul has long hair, a massive beard and is about 5ft tall -also with no shoes and in is baggy, broken jeans unfortunately in became apparent that he owns no pants either! After this we drove to a waterfall which was nice then finally got home. Nimbin – not somewhere i’ll be rushing back to anytime soon.

Anyway, Byron is a really great place, theres basically one main street with shops and cafes and bars and at the end you reach the beach 🙂 After our day trip to Hippyville we had a big bbq in the hostel then went out to ‘Beach hotel Bar’ which was fun.. next couple days we spent down on the beach and one night we headed down there late at night to relax under the stars… lets just say skinny-dipping in the Pacific Ocean is a MUST – you only live once right?! (<–you’ll be hearing this a lot as it’s become the gangs new motto!) haha! On the walk back to our appartment it POURED with rain which just made the whole thing even funnier.

Yesterday the canadian in our room that works in the hostel called Ben invited us to play ‘Beersbee’ with him and his mates in the yard, we thought it sounded fun till we got round there and realised we were to be the only girls with about 12 already drunk canadians who take thier ‘Beerzbee’ very seriously.  It’s basically Frisbee and there are two teams and you have to try and throw the frisbee and hit a can off a stick without knocking over any of the beer bottles below, by 8pm we were in a bit of a state already which made packing a little bit stressful haha but this morning we jumped on the bus and are now in Surfers Paradise!

Updates soon XXXXXXX

We were picked up in the morning around 6.30am by an Oz Experience bus, our driver up to Surf Camp was "Uncle Buck" who let us play karaoke and eat McDonalds along the way! It was a pretty long drive ... [Continue reading this entry]

So the past couple of days it has been TIPPING it down with rain, as our swedish friend has learnt to say "it's raining cats and dogs" (much to our amusement!) Our hostel is very near the Darling Harbour and so we've ... [Continue reading this entry]

It's been a few days since my last entry which is due to the fact that we've just done a 3 day road trip up to Sydney :) Finishing off Melbourne: We met 'Janelle' from neighbours who was 'Stingray' and 'Dylans' mum..remember?! haha ... [Continue reading this entry]

Having completed our time in HK (including getting our fortunes told, i'm very, very lucky apparently, i'll marry a tall muscular man, we'll have 2 houses, i'll be successful in my career and have 1 boy and on girl!) Holly's ... [Continue reading this entry]

We have finally made it to Hong Kong! (although have now been trying to keep our eyes open for 26hrs which has NOT been easy after an 11 1/2 hr flight!) We left for the airport at 9 in the morning and ... [Continue reading this entry]