Surfer's Paradise without the surfing...

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Missed out a few days so thought I'd get some sort of order back...

15th of Jan was a very busy day. We were even in town (the hostel is in a place called Southport, which I should stress is slightly nicer than the English version, and "town" is Surfers) by midday, which is quite remarkable. I'm getting much better at relaxing now- in Sydney there was a lot of running around and sightseeing, however in Byron and Surfers there is hardly anything to do apart from lie on a beach and burn, so I've taken to having days in the shade reading my book (am now on Wuthering Heights which is quite good, although it is a terrible conversation starter:

Pretty girl : what are you reading there?
Mattador: Wuthering Heights
Pretty girl : Oh.


the end

Anyway, it's not very cool.

These things aside, went to travel shop in town, who told us that Fraser Island (our next stop after Brisbane and Noosa) was pretty much booked up for the 4x4 driving (the only way to get around- its the worlds biggest sand island) until the 28th, which is bad, as I'm trying to do that (3 days) and a boat round the Whitsunday islands (3 days) and get up to Cairns and back to Brisbane all by the 1st Feb (impossible) so have had to delay my flight until the 10th, which is the next available one.

Anyway, once we'd been in the travel shop for what seemed like, and in fact was 2 hours, we left, and decided that we needed a relaxing beer, as all that organising had taken it out of us. We found a traditional Aussie pub- 'Kitty O'Shea's', where they were showing the football from Saturday, so in a fit of nostalgia, we stayed there for a while. Two of the girls from the hostel came to join us, and were so annoying and loud that we had to leave immediately. Back to the hostel, cooked some sort of curry (am now starting to cook actual meals in hostels which is better). Sat around with a load of people in the hostel in the evening and had some red wine, which is about 5 pounds for a 2 litre bag of very nice red... Was quite good fun actually, there was a nice group of people staying there when we were, which I think was the main reason for us faffing around there so long and not really doing very much, but then not doing much also doesn't cost very much, and the next bit will!

The following morning followed a similar pattern, involving me getting up early, am discovering that my favourite part of the day here is when it's still cool in the morning and I can have a cup of tea and read my book when there's nobody up. I don't think this makes me very happening but I don't care. We were going to try and book all our Fraser island / Whitsunday stuff today (16th), but we were sidetracked by it being really hot, and ended up spending some quality time by the pool, planning what we were going to do between now and Fraser. Predictably we didn't achieve very much, apart from some pinkness, but in the afternoon after a delightful lunch of 'travellers pies' and beans, I went shopping in Ausralia Fair, which is very big. Bought a phone I can use anywhere in the world which is nice, and once I get to NZ, my number will change once more, and that will be the best number to contact me on from then on. It's free to phone it from a UK landline as well, but more on that later.

That took most of the afternoon, so came home tired, and ready to read some more book by the pool, and did nothing really up until dinner time, after which we sat around and had a few beers and talked about how we had all found ourselves and how we really felt, and things.

Not a very productive two days, but good all the same. Forgot to say the reason we haven't been surfing is because there are loads of box-jellyfish (stingers) being washed into the bay by the wind, and they are bad, so we decided against the surfing here...

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