Surfers Paradise

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The Oz bus pulled into Surfers Paradise in the afternoon after another long days driving, stopping in Mooloolaba, Noosa and Brisbane for drop-offs and pick-ups.

Myself and Lee walked a short distance on our hostel 'Backpackers in Paradise'. We stayed in an insane 20 bed dorm which was like a military barracks or something. The people in the room were ok and met some people to do stuff with.

Surfers itself is on the Gold Coast. a holiday mecca for Australians. It reminded me of a cleaner, slightly less tacky European holiday destination. The weather was crap with lots of rain but we managed to avoid it when it mattered.

We spent the afternoon wondering around and ventured onto the windswept beach where there were inevitably surfers. We booked a 3 day pass to the theme parks and just chilled in our room that evening talking to our roommates including an Israeli guy called Shlomi and a kiwi girl called Jo.

In the morning myself, Lee and Jo took the bus to Movieworld. We got soaked walking to the bus stop but by the time we arrived at the theme park, the rain had stopped. It was much smaller than any parks in England or America and the ques were small too which enabled us to go on everything at least once. There was a superman ride that shot you out and around, another ride similar to detenator at Thorpe Park only this one shot you up and back down, Shrek 4D, a simulator and a logflume ride were all included.

That night we went out with Shlomi, Jo and a German girl whos name i cant remember. Because our hostel had a licensed bar we were not allowed to bring our own alcohol on-site, so we went to the bottleshop and bought some beers and then went and sat on a sofa in an amusement arcade and drank all we had. Once done we walked into town and spent the rest of the night in an Irish bar called 'Waxy's' where we chatted to a load of random people as well as amoungst ourselves.

The day after was day 2 of 3 theme parks where again myself, Lee and Jo caught the bus, this time to Seaworld. We went on everything from flumes to rollercoasters, watched some wildlife including a polar bear doing lengths, backstroke, pushing off the glass and then swimming back time after time to repeat. There were shows that we watched such as the sealion show, the dolphin show, similar to what i saw in Florida, just on a much smaller scale. There was also the waterski show.

It started to rain just as we left having had the sun there the whole day.

Our final day in Surfers was spent rushed to say the least, myself and Lee spent the morning at Wet N Wild enjoying the waterpark. We left at about 1.30pm hoping to catch the bus back but the next one was not coming until too close to our Oz bus departure time and we didn't want to miss that so after assessing our options we resorted to getting a taxi which cost us about $20 each, flashbacks to LA but at least we made it.

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