Adventure 2013: Surfers Paradise

I flew into Coolangatta which is just south of Gold Coast. And it was super easy to get into Surfers Paradise. I had booked a hostel while I was in the airport in Sydney so all I had to do was find it. It wasn’t too hard but when you’re lugging a suitcase it’s a pain to do anything. It was when I had to drag my suitcase about that I really missed my backpack.

Sleeping Inn Surfers Paradise was what I like to call a typical hostel. Which means it’s cheap,  not the cleanest but the people in your dorm make up for the downs. I was lucky and got put in an 8 person apartment. So there were two rooms of 4 people each and we shared a common room and kitchen. When I arrived I was greeted by 2 girls from LA, 2 girls from Canada and Ross who was a proud Kiwi.

Now I wasn’t too terribly impressed by Surfers Paradise and pretty much Gold Coast in general. It reminded me of Atlantic City. Don’t get me wrong I love AC and Gold Coast was still fun but there was no sightseeing to be done. And you know how I love my sightseeing!

Instead I wandered down to the beach and it was stunning. 

And the waves were lovely and I couldn’t resist…. So I hunted down a skim board and bought it!

 It was rather a spontaneous buy but how could I pass up such good waves? I’m really glad I did since there wasn’t much to do in Gold Coast I spent the next two days on the beach. It gave me my beach fix I’d been missing all summer.

That first night there was the a night market on the board walk like area. 

It was really cool. I found my brothers their present of kangaroo jerky and I got myself a cool Zebra Stone necklace. 

Zebra Stone is only mined in the Kimberley’s of Western Australia. The vein of stone has been dated at 600 million years in the Upper Proterozoic era or Pre-Cambrian period. To me it was the most Australian present I could buy myself.

That night I wake up in the middle of the night to the one Canadian girl yelling at Ross for snoring. She couldn’t remember his name so she was yelling “Kiwi! Kiwi! Shut up! Roll over!” In her defence he said he preferred to be called Kiwi. It was still really funny that she was yelling at him to stop snoring.

So the next day was just a mix of skim boarding and food making and relaxing. Since Ross had left back home early in the morning we got a new roomie. An Irish girl who was only staying the night. She seemed okay to begin with…. By the end of it all not so much. Now my last night a Sleeping Inn was something of a comical disaster. I barely got any sleep, which sucked. But really it was worth it for the story that it made.

You see I was hoping for a nice night of sleep because the next day my friend Angelica was driving in from Toowoomba to take me bush walking, naturally I wanted to be well rested for the hike. But there was too much shenanigans for the hope of sleep.

It started out by the Canadians forgetting their key to get into our room. So I had to roll out of bed at about 2am to let them in. Then being like most typical drunks they made a whole lot of noise getting ready for bed and talking about all manner of odd things which was quite funny. I just kind of child there nodding off when I hear the one girl start screaming. She hops up on her friend’s bed and keeps screaming about how there was  cockroach on the floor. Well that did it for me. I didn’t want a cockroach in my suitcase so I roll out of bed all ninja like grab a hairspray top and get ready to pounce. I got the cockroach and flushed it. Which then made everything okay and we all settled down for sleep. 

That lasted about an hour and a half because the Irish girl finally decided to grace us with her presence. And with her presence came a whole other can of worms. You see apparently one of the Canadian’s guy friends at the hostel wanted to get it on with the Irish girl. So the three of us set out to cockblock the whole situation. Turns out we weren’t needed as she told him to and I quote “roll over and shut the fuck up.” It was rather funny to be honest. So long story short it took us all a while to settle back down, mainly because we woke the LA girls up too to witness the scene in our room.

Moral of the story? Sleeping Inn Surfers Paradise would have been the absolute worst hostel I’ve ever stayed in IF I hadn’t been stuck with a cool group of girls.

Even though I got very little sleep I managed to bush walk like a champ!

Cheers,

Adventure 2013: Bondi Beach

I could have lumped this into my Sydney post since Bondi Beach is a suburb of Sydney… but you see Bondi has it’s own fond place in my heart now. Naturally I had to give it a whole post of it’s own. 

I had been maybe sort of planning on going back to Big Hostel to stay my last night in Sydney. But Charles had suggested I go see Bondi Beach. And I’d heard that it was a pretty cool place to go from a few other people I just hadn’t gone because it was kind of out of the way and you had to take a bus there. But I figured why not I’ll make it an adventure.

My first step to getting to Bondi was taking the Manly Ferry. Out of the way hells yeah. But that was another thing I had heard was the thing to do in Sydney. Since I was already on the north shore of the harbour it wasn’t that hard to get over there. You see as I stood there waiting for the bus into city centre I saw there was also a bus to Manly. So I was like F it I’ll start at Manly. 

It was so worth it! The views from the ferry were amazing!

And it’s always the best feeling to be on the water. It’s just so clearing and lovely when you’re on a boat. I bought a bus ticket to Bondi and took the 333 bus right into the heart of Bondi. I had googled hostels on the ferry and there was a cheap one I was tried to find close to the beach. I couldn’t so I ended up going to the first one I had passed. Bondi Backpackers. It was right on the main road. And the only thing between the front door and the beach was the street and the beach parking lot. Here’s a view from the boardwalk. My hostel is up there in the middle of those buildings.

It wasn’t the nicest of hostels but it did the job. I just needed somewhere to sleep.  Because really Bondi was such a cute place that I was happier being out and about.

My first order of business was to go on a cliff walk. It was really pretty! Like so pretty. A wee bit of a work out but worth it.

I put my feet in the Pacific for the first time. And it was warm considering it was winter.

Then I found dinner aka a muffin and coffee and sat out to watch the sun set.

It was as I sat on a bench breathing the sea air that I decided I was going to move to Sydney. Well more specifically Bondi Beack. It’s still my plan by the way. I’m manifesting the money and everything lining up so that I can move there in May. 

After breathing a bit more fresh air I went back to my hostel and cuddled up for sleep.

Originally I had wanted to drive from Sydney to Gold coast. When I had told Charles that I was going to drive he was like even I wouldn’t attempt that. Now mind you Charles loves driving, it’s his favourite mode of transport. so when he said he wouldn’t try driving in Australia, because they drive on the opposite side of the road, I let it get in my head. So I had booked a cheap plane ticket up. And it was cool because my hostel arranged a cheap airport shuttle for me. But since I wasn’t due to take off till about 15h40 I had till 13h30 to see more of Bondi. 

I walked around a bit more. Then as I was climbing around on the rocks I was struck with the urge to take off my shoes and hop in the water. So I rolled my pants up and waded around on the rocks enjoying the water and just chilling out for a long while. When I was dried and had my shoes back on I grabbed a bite to eat before fetching my suitcase and heading to the airport.

The final stage of my adventure was about to begin. I had thought things were winding down… little did I know the best was yet to come.

Cheers,