One night in Paradise

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I decided to split up my day on the bus with a visit to the Curumbin nature sanctuary. In Byron I had met a guy on the beach who used to work at the nature sanctuary and he said it was one of the best places in all of Australia. I travelled to Burleigh heads and dropped off my stuff at the surf school for the day before hopping a bus to Currumbin. I checked out the honey house (honey is a big deal here, and I'm not sure why) and bought some tasmanian honey which is suprisingly spicy. I want to take it home, but for some reason you can't take honey into New Zealand, so I guess I'll have to eat it here or something.
The nature sanctuary was awesome. The moment I walked in I was getting a picture taken of me holding a baby crocadile (it didn't turn out, I had another tourist take it). The whole place is a series of large pens with double gates that all of the footpaths go through, so I was right next to most of the animals without a fence in between which was nice. I had a chance to pet some baby kangaroos and saw the endangered bird exhibit. It was really hot so most of the animals were just laying around under trees. I didn't get to see a Tasmanian Devil because they were all sleeping. Since visiting the sanctuary I've been reccommending it to everyone, it wasnt' crowded and you actually got to play with the animals (I have a feeling that wouldn't fly in Canada). I spent the afternoon sitting on the beach before heading out to Surfers Paradise. I got the last bed in the town, which was unfortunately ont he outskirts, but it was full of fantastic people. I spent the night partying with two girls from Melbourne, one girl from Scottland and a whole mess of university students from Canberra who were on a trip together. We all sat around on the beach playing guitar until 3 in the morning. It was a perfect night in paradise.
I spent a good part of the next day booking a camping trip and a sailing trip for the next week, and shopping. That's pretty much what everyone here does. This place is full of malls as far as the eye can see. I bought a hat because no matter how much sunscreen I use my nose has somehow managed to get even more burned everyday.
From here I head to Brisbane to sleep in a real bed and eat delicious food with my grade five teacher and his daughter and son-in-law.

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Photos

Lawn Bowling in Burleigh Heads
Lawn bowling is a big deal, don't even joke about it.

koalas
apparently they're very vicious, but being doped up on eucalyptus they just sleep all day.

Surfers Paradise
basically, skyscrapers falling into the ocean