Hello again,
Hope all’s well & that the weather is starting to improve back in Blighty. Know we won’t get much sympathy but we're in Sydney & it’s been overcast, drizzly & pretty chilly (very unusual for them). It’s the first time we’ve worn jeans since leaving the UK!
But back to where we left off with the last post. We moved on from Brisbane to Surfers Paradise, which I think is a bit of a marmite place as people tend to love or hate it. I can see why some people don’t rate it as it’s pretty commercial with big high rise buildings & some tacky shops/restaurants but we thought it was pretty good. Gary rated it more than me but I certainly wouldn’t say I disliked it.
There was a bit of confusion around when the shuttle bus was arriving to take us to the hostel, as we were a little way out of the main bit, but this eventually arrived. On seeing the place we were staying I think it would have been preferable if the shuttle bus hadn’t have turned up! Gary & I said that we hope it’s the closest we come to knowing what it’s like to be in a prison cell! Our ‘room’ had bare concrete walls & ceiling, a teeny window (although no bars fortunately), two clothes hooks, 1 shelf, a small mirror & a dirty fan. The carpet was thinner than our micro fibre towels & the beds weren’t the best either. We then made the mistake of checking out the shared bathroom facilities. In fairness the ladies sounded much better than the gents but even they were pretty bleak. It seems that most of the male guests had some issues with aim & thought it was acceptable to just pee & crap somewhere in the vicinity of the toilet! On the plus side Gary has a new appreciation for my cleaning regime back home!
Deciding that the best idea was to get the hell out of the hostel for the rest of the afternoon we headed across the road to main beach, which was really nice. It was much quieter than the central part of Surfers Paradise. Gary went for a swim & came back clutching $50 that he’d found poking out of the sand. This is about £27, which when you’re travelling is like winning the lottery! Can’t remember if we said in a previous post but we also found $20 on the street in Rainbow Beach, happy days. Although I think we’ve now spent this $70 about 3 times over as we keep using it to justify non-essential expenditure!
That evening we went to a local fish & chips shop that had been recommended & it was heaving. I’ve never seen anything like it. We queued for about 20 mins & then our order took about another 25 mins from there. As it was New Year’s Day they were shutting at 7pm so we were some of the last people they let through the doors. They had to turn lots away. The fish is all freshly caught that day & it was worth the wait as it was lovely.
The next day we headed to the beach in the centre of Surfer's Paradise & chilled there for the day. That night we went to explore a road close to the hostel (Tedder Avenue) that I’d heard was really nice & the reports weren’t wrong. It was full of lovely little restaurants that were all lit up. As expected they were pricey so we decided to have breakfast there the next day instead & headed back to a pub next door to the hostel for dinner (we couldn't bring ourselves to cook in the hostel kitchen). Weirdly given the roughness of the hostel it was in a really posh area with a marina & a Versace hotel next door. My desire to try & sneak into the Versace hotel was overwhelming but I think my crumpled backpack clothes would have given me away!
After breakfast on Tedder Ave the next morning (I had Turkish toast, my new obsession, which I've already emailed Della about to see if she can make it!) we chilled on the beach near the hostel as we had to catch the bus that afternoon to Byron Bay. It was a scorching day, which it always seems to be when we're catching a bus!
We arrived in Byron Bay about 5pm that evening. It's only about 1.5 hours from Surfers Paradise. During the journey you cross a road where one side is Queensland & the other is New South Wales & you need to put your watch forward an hour. Don't know how it works if you want to meet up with someone who lives on the other side of the road, you must have to synchronise watches or something! The traffic getting into Byron was crazy & the bus driver said that the town was packed. We weren't concerned though as we had our accommodation booked, or so we thought!
So we get to the hostel & say that we have a dorm booked for the first night & then a double room for the following 2 nights but they'd only booked Gary into a dorm for night one & had forgotten to book me in. The hostel was full, as was every other place in the town so I shared a single bunk with Gary in a 5 person, male dorm for the night, cosy! A gecko then crawled across a smoke alarm at 5.30am the next morning setting it off so that we all had to leave our rooms. Not the best start, although it did mean we didn't have to pay for my first night & they gave us free breakfast the next day so there were some benefits.
Byron is described as a hippy town & it does have this vibe but I was surprised by how upmarket it was too, with lots of fairly pricey nice cafés & boutique shops. It's also known as a surfing mecca, but more on this later. Day 1 was spent enjoying the beach, although I didn't venture into the water as the waves were massive & there was a rip tide so there were loads of caution signs & 'swim at your own risk'. It was good for watching the surfers though.
The next day was really chilled with a nice lay in to make up for the previous bad nights sleep & a potter around the shops (spending our free $70 again!) Our last day there was action packed though, as we got up at 4.45am to walk up to the lighthouse & watch the sunrise. The lighthouse is the most easterly point of Australia & the pictures we managed to get up there are stunning. We'd then booked ourselves into a surf lesson for the afternoon, which was so much fun but also the most hard work ever. It took us a couple of attempts to stand up but we both managed to ride quite a few waves into the shore, which we were chuffed about. One of the instructors was the most stereotypical surf dude ever & ridiculously toned, reminded me a bit of Brad from Neighbours (for those of you old enough to remember him). I didn't even try to hide my ogling from Gary, who had to concede that he looked like he'd been photoshopped!
Gary would like it noted that the instructor said he had natural ability & if we're going to mention this then I also think it's worth recording that he said I was better than Gary (ha ha)! After this lesson I was so shattered that I could barely move. We headed back to the hostel to shower & eat dinner before catching the overnight greyhound to Sydney. An enjoyable 13 hour journey! The only slight plus was that it wasn't full so we had 2 seats each to try & get some sleep but you generally end up cat napping as you stop quite a bit.
We'll fill you in on our experiences of Sydney in the next post. We've only now got Melbourne left before we leave Oz & head onto NZ. These last few weeks have gone so quickly & we'll be gutted to leave as we've had an amazing time but sure more adventures await in NZ.
Keep in touch,
G & C x
