Australia Part 10 - Gold Coast 2

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Big bananas, rat poop, Pailey Wally and pancakes mmmm yummy!!!

We had told Amy about the wonders of the cream teas on the train which she was most excited about, so it was a shame to find that this train was too late in the day to serve them. The train was very comfy as usual and only a short distance by comparison to the other rides and before we knew it we were in Coffs harbour. Again I had a stupid small map of the area and tried to find what direction we needed to go in to get to the YHA. This wasn’t helped by everything being on hills, the guide book hadn’t said anything about hills!!! We ended up looking like proper tourists (which I hate doing) starring around with our mouths open looking like we’ve had a lobotomy!! We finally found some friendly locals coming out of a local pub who pointed us in the right direction, right up another hill - I thought we were in Australia and its all flat isn’t it!!

The hostel was newly built so really clean but weirdly set out; with a TV room that was squeezed to one side of the reception area and obviously an afterthought. Having no food on us we decided we would go for a look round for somewhere cheap to eat as the hostel guy told us it shouldn’t be much - not sure where he was thinking of but as we walked along the main street all we found were hugely overpriced restaurants, the only thing of note was the trees that Nath pointed out which looked like they had penis’ - anyway…so we decided we would have fish and chips at the shop by the hostel but first we’d go look at the beach front. It was getting dark so hard to take any photos but it was a nice looking beach. Amy and I headed over to the beach side restaurant fooling ourselves that it might be cheap - of course it wasn’t, and I need both my kidneys anyway.

So we headed back to fish and chip shop only to find it was shut, god dam it! I was getting hungry and impatient now, so the only other option left was the supermarket, which again with 3 hungry people was hard work to try and figure out what everyone wanted. In the end we opted for some kind of stir fry but also the ingredients for pancakes given that I had been desperate for them since Bellingen and Amy was a keen cook. We cooked our dinner and watched a bit of TV and of course before long being 3 British people we wanted tea and pancakes, however we learnt this lesson very quickly that the kitchen for some reason closed at 10.30pm and it was now 10 noooooooooooooooooo pancakes!!!! (Nath teeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa). So Amy gave us a quick lesson in how to make pancakes and we managed to just make a few each before the weird Quasimodo cleaner came in and grunted it was time to go. We finished our pancakes in the weird shaped lounge area and the manager asked us to return our plates when we were finished, and that he had told the cleaner we would pop them back. So when I took my plate back I was surprised that the door was locked and the cleaner man (I use the term loosely) was starring at me weirdly when I tried to gesture I was brining the plate back. He smirked at me when I finally managed to get inside and say I’d brought the plate back like the manager had said, Which confused me a little. Turns out when I retold this storey to Nath and Amy it was less likely to do with the guy being a weirdo and more likely to do with the fact I had chocolate sauce all round my face!!!!

The next day we woke to find it was pouring with rain, so our few ideas of what to do in Coffs were scuppered, so we decided we would just walk into own and have a look round. Of course before leaving we had a pancake breakfast, this time without rushing and making sure none of us were covered in chocolate sauce before we left!! It was such a change from the day before, so grey and miserable, it was like being back at home!! Even with rain Macs on we still got quite wet and the walk into town was longer than we had expected. It didn’t help that I had woken that day feeling quite ill so I was a barrel of laughs to say the least. The town was pretty dull so we weren’t long and headed back to the hostel to give up on finding any excitement in the town- we were beginning to see why others had said they hadn’t bothered to come here. On the way back we passed a house with some privet bushes and a huge spider with a yellow web. It was disgusting and the biggest spider I’d seen so far (still haven’t seen a huntsman fingers crossed this continues) so we stood there being disgusted but amazed at the same time. Before long, the owners came out, I think to check we hadn’t lost our carers but soon realised we were just tourists and explained it was a golden orb spider. The yellow web was so thick and strong it was like piano wire, I’d hate to walk into one accidentally.

Anyway I was feeling really rough so just made it back in time before falling asleep immediately in the dorm. I woke hungry a good few hours later and suddenly much better and we were all looking forward to the fish and chip shop being open for dinner - no such luck, yet again when we walked down there it was shut, it seems it only opens for a few hours during the day and is closed by dinner time - what sort of stupid chip shop shuts at dinner time!! That evening we introduce Amy to the film Superbad, which she and the other foreigners (who understood it) I think found quite funny. We all went up to bed in the hope the weather would be better the next day as we would soon be moving on and so far all we had done was eat pancakes! Luckily next day it was very sunny, so it meant after breakfast we could get the bus to the famous Big Banana. What’s the big banana I hear you say, well its a big banana pretty much with a banana based theme park attached to it, only the aussies could think of such a weird concept for a theme park - but as we’d notice travelling round they do like their random large monuments to all things aussie.

After having our photo taken at the big banana (a must according to the rough guide) we paid our entry fee (which included a free banana) and headed for the toboggan run. Very similar to the luge ride in Rotorua but a lot smaller, not that we knew this till we’d got on it. We were also the only people there, it was great, no queues and no screaming kids which was good as it meant all thee of us could scream on the way down as much as we liked. After our very quick ride on the luge we headed to the watermark, again I say watermark it was two large inflatable slides and a handful of tiny ones for kids. We could have easily been disappointed by our visit to the Big Banana but again being the only people there we had the slides all to ourselves and could go on as much as we liked - it was great! We spent a long time on the water slide, starting with the smallest one as it was still a bit nerve wracking throwing yourself out onto an inflatable run way. Soon we were trying to think of more interesting ways to throw ourselves down the slides. The worst bit was standing at the top of one slide wondering what that funky smell was, and then realising that I had just been shat on form above by some kind of flying elephant! There was shit all over my arm and the slide - needless to say I waited for them to wash the slide down before I went back on!! The best bit but also the most painful bit was landing at the end; you slide so fast down the slide that you fly towards the inflatable wall at the end which you’d think was soft - well its not at speed and every time we looked like crash test dummies screaming with laugher and fear as we pounded into the wall. I think we all tried our own techniques to stop before the wall but failed miserably each time, deciding the best thing to do was to go limp and hope for the best. This helped but made the videos even funnier to watch!! I even tried not to scream as I went down the slide, but it was just too hard and I failed every time!!

After our excitement on the slides was over it was time to head back but being hungry we decided to buy something from the overpriced café and of course came back with a chocolate covered banana on a stick! On the walk back we walked along the beach as we hadn’t been able to see what it was like since we’d arrived. It was a lovely walk but I must say we were getting very tired by the end of it. Knowing full well the fish and chip shop was a pointless endeavour we decided to try the local pub down the road that we passed on the first day we arrived in the town. It was bit weird looking and a bit “local” to say the least but luckily the restaurant was out the back and was cheap. We had a pizza dinner with a couple of beers and watched top gear and when we were about to give up and go back we suddenly got joined by a local Australian who was travelling on her own and wanted some company. Of course we were more than happy to chat to her, she was a surfer chick so I asked loads of probably stupid questions about what to do (as we’d planned to do a lot more body boarding on the way up) she again was very “dude” like and we struggled to not look like weird tea drinking Brts. Just as I was about to turn off of the conversation of surfing and onto something else she finished her beer said good night and left - it was so weird.

When we got back to the hostel I got ready for bed pretty quickly and was enjoying reading a book (no I wasn’t typing a blog for once, give me a break) when Nath noticed some flashing outside. Nath looked out the window and said he thought it might have been fire works but it was lighting up the whole sky and was very erratic. We were all so captivated by it that we decided to go outside and have a look. I still had my pj’s on at this point but figured why not, and we headed for a near by beach to see if we could see the source of the flashing. Turns out it was lightening, but without any thunder or rain. We sat on the beach watching it, it was spooky not to hear any thunder and it felt like something weird was going on. We couldn't tear ourselves away form it as we wondered if at any minute it might move closer or we might hear a huge clap of thunder…..but in the end I was getting cold sat in my pj’s and we headed back to the hostel. Turns out it was just an electoral storm which is quite common here thus there were no groups of locals all mesmerised by it, just 3 tourists, one of which was in her pj’s - we’re so easily impressed!!!

On our final day we weren’t due to be leaving until the afternoon so we decided we would go to the Pet Porpoise Pool. Although we’d seen loads of these shows before we had noting else to do and had run out of pancake making ingredients so needed something to raise our spirits. It was a great place to go, it was the most interactive show I’ve ever been too and very focus on rehabilitation and training. Like a small child I put my hand up at every offer of helping and ended up feeding dolphins from a raised platform and threw a fish into the mouth of a sea lion!! It was great, I was in my element, all I needed now was to cuddle a kitten/puppy! But they don’t swim very well and are crap performers so there weren’t any of those. We also got to feed some fish and got a mouthful of salty water form one of the fish as it flipped its tail in a huge effort to get the food before the others. With some time before our next train we fed some tiny blue penguins (these things seem to get everywhere) and some huge Pelicans, before enjoying a cream tea (as we were worried we would have missed it on the train again) before heading for the train station.

Now we were wondering what it would be like in Byron bay considering everyone we had spoken to had said it was mainly about drinking and getting stoned and that the accommodation was pretty poor. So after doing loads of research I booked somewhere that seemed to look pretty good, but was slightly away from all the business of the main street. We arrived in the evening and were collected by a French lady who struggled with what we were saying; but we understood her enough to know that they had double booked the dorm room we wanted so they were giving us a free upgrade to a triple unit for the night. Excellent we thought this should be good, especially after we had been told it was a self catering unit so we’d be able to save money and keep making our own food. It was hard to get to grips with the place in the dark, but it seemed an ok place on arrival - apart from the spider that we had to along before sealing the door shut behind us!.

The room unfortunately was a double bed and then a single in the adjoining “kitchen” which was rock hard and looked like it was propped up on one side. Luckily there was also a sofa bed which Amy choose to use instead. Now I call it a kitchen very loosely because on appearance it looked like one, but was actually more of an MFI kitchen where everything is actually plastic or made out of boxes!! We had lots of empty drawers and cupboards but no crockery etc. we had no kettle but a microwave, no oven or sink but a huge fridge freezer- I was almost expecting to find a wax fruit bowl somewhere!

So we managed to salvage some plates and a cup from the shared kitchen which was an industrial site and heat our water in the microwave. So it looked like we would have to go out for food everyday which was an extra pain as the hostel was away from town. We figured it was generally ok until we realised there was no key or lock for the room and no lockers; that’s it we all agreed this place is ridiculous we won’t be staying here unless we get it for free!! But it was too late to argue with anyone so it would have to wait until the morning. Tired and pissed off Nath and I sat on the double bed leant our heads back against the wall and slide half way across the room into Amy -perfect!! (A tiled floor and wheels on the bed, what a great idea!)

Anyway we had a good nights sleep and felt refreshed about our arguments to the manger so first thing we marched into reception to speak to someone. Basically they had a dorm room for us all as we had requested for the next two nights, or we could stay in the upgraded room but pay the extra. I argued that we would not be staying somewhere were there was no where to put our valuables - so I was told we could give them to her and she would put them in the office (but the office closed at certain times)-I said that wasn’t good enough-she said the triple room does lock she just hadn’t got round to giving us a key-I said that’s good then we would stay in there but for the price we were quoted for the dorm rooms-she said no it was a set price - I said we’ll we’re on a tight budget so they either want our money or they need to take us back to town so we could find somewhere else to stay-she said I’ll go start the car!!
Well that didn’t quite go how I had planned but we figured we were still better off somewhere else, surely all the places couldn’t be this bad - oh dear how wrong we were

So when people say its better the devil you know I can totally agree as our next hostel was that bit of the cake with the icing and the married couple standing on top. We were collected by a very broad accent Scottish guy called Dommie who was very laid back and told us how great the place was considering the price (should have been our first give away). It was fun to watch Amy and Dommie interact like they’d just found out they weren’t the last of their race to still be alive after some disaster - not that we could understand much of what they were saying. Dommie did however comment on the fact that he should of known that Amy was from Scotland by the blue colour of her skin, saying that she looked “pailey wally” which caused Nath to stifle a laugh and start a new nick name for Amy.

So Dommie dropped us off, the reception seemed nice, the place was just over the road from the beach and had a restaurant/bar type place next door. they also had a couple of cats which were black with white paws who they named the same thing as they could never remember which one was which (according to the lady owner it was because unlike most cats they were twins!! I couldn’t laugh directly in her face so I hid it with a yawn and let it out later). Anyway we were led down one dark damp corridor after another till finally we came to the gates of hell - sorry I mean our room- the door creaked open and inside were 3 sets of rickety wooden bunks, a thin ceiling high window with some old pants stretched across it as curtains and a smell of an old washer woman - but hey at least we’d made our point to the French woman!!

Amy more than us was not impressed by the quality of the hostel as she had so far been staying with family friends so we tried, without trying to sound patronising, to imply that this was actually about average. I must admit though that the more we looked around etc the more we agreed that perhaps this was the lowest of the low as far as oz went.!! We managed to place our freezer bag in the one freezer that looked like it was working, although the bottom of it got soaked in milk that was leaking from another shelf (which luckily took away the smell of old woman from our room) but my favourite feature to this hostel was the rat poo in the cupboards!! Needless to say we went out and bought food from the supermarket and practically boiled all the utensils etc that we used before we ate, in the vain hope that would help! To make ourselves feel better we all went to sit on the beach with the idea of having a swim, but by the time we got there it was a bit grey and the time was getting on. I think we were all thinking it for a while, but I suggested that we give up on sitting on the beach which wasn’t getting any better and head into town to book our train out of Byron a day early!

Again as with the general feeling for the day that too was harder to do than imagined; as the station was closed by the time we got there. So we had to find a tourist agency that would do it for us as we were told we must have the piece of paper with our booking on it (not that we’ve ever needed to this up to this point but hey I’d already argued once that day). The town was becoming very busy now full of drunken people and busy bars and lots of “dudes”. So feeling old and very un cool we all headed back for a night in with the bed bugs that were bound to be sharing a room with us! Oh note to doggy lovers, on the way back we passed the tiniest little puppy (who technically was too young to be on the ground with other dogs but anyway) that I was ale to pick up and cuddle in the palm of my hand ahhhhh. Anyway the hostel itself was also loud that night so Nath, Amy the bed bugs and I decided to just sit and listen to some of our own music in the vain attempt to drown out the outside world and imagine we were else where, which alongside the rest of our goon bag (Boxed wine) we managed very well - hick!

The next day, our final day luckily, we decided to walk to the lighthouse as we were unaware of anything else bar getting stoned that there was to do around here. It was a really sunny day and on our way there along the beach we came across loads of people gathering for a triathlon, so stopped to watch this and work on our tans. It was bloody hot that day and although we had sun screen on we did burn a little bit. Anyway after watching all the super fit people running into the surf we figured we should start our climb to the light house. It was sunny pretty much all day with a few spits of rain as we ascended the lighthouse hill and the views down the beach back towards Byron were really nice, but we were getting hungry so decided to stop for a while and share our left over dinner we had bought with us with the one fork we had between us.

As we got to the top, which was bloody hard work, the sky had turned grey and it looked just like rain clouds - which is exactly what it was. We made it to the light house just in time to enjoy the down pour form a distance and then we saw it - the coffee and ice-cream shop - talk about fate. So as you can imagine we sat watching the rain having our coffee and ice-cream laughing at the people running for cover. So far the sunny weather for oz has been a bit rubbish, my impression was that it never rained or got cold in Australia, that their complaints about the winter would be a average summer for us, but turns out it does bloody rain and it I’m guessing will get cold at some point - I’m glad we wont be here when that happens?!?!?

We stopped laughing at the people running past, not because we were found out but because we realised we were in the middle of a waiting bridal party. The poor couple would have picked a great day to get married if only they’d done it in the morning, but now it was grey and rainy. Luckily the rain didn’t last long but the grey cloud did. We decided to stop (well Amy and I did) to watch the wedding whilst Nath took pictures of the light house. We admired the dresses and bitched about others, as girls do and tried to guess the groom -which we got wrong by the way. Then all of a sudden a rumble from the road behind us - was it the bride arriving in a tank-was it a bird-was it a plane - no it was a bus load of Chinese tourists!!! They covered the wedding party in a matter of seconds, getting photos with the groom and doing that stupid peace sign they do (I don’t know why). It was so embarrassing but I guess it didn’t seem like that to them, and luckily the bridal party were happy for them to join in - for a time anyway.

On our way back we saw weird bush turkeys roaming around the place, enjoying the fact that even come Xmas they weren’t going to be eaten, so as you can imagine they strutted around like they owned the place!! I also managed to point out some dolphins, jumping around in the surf, which was really great to see, but they weren’t there long enough for us to get a really decent shot. It was then the long walk back to the hostel which took ages but was really lovely with the sun slowly setting

Back at the hostel we had just enough time for some tea and biscuits before we’d get the free shuttle back to the bus station to move on from this hell hole of a place. But unfortunately we sat in the lounge which had damp mouldy chairs, having tea that tasted like onion, so soon gave up on that. Luckily I found us some old newspapers to sit on, it felt like we were homeless, and to be honest compared with this hostel I think the streets would have been more inviting. Soon we were dropped off in town to wait for the bus which unfortunately wasn’t due for a few hours, so we sat at the noodle box to have some dinner whilst we waited (rubbish noodles by the way).

Byron bay had been a weird place to stay, we’d heard so many good things about it but just hadn’t liked it ourselves, maybe because we’re not young enough, or hip enough or stupid enough I don’t know but overall this and the rest of the gold coast has been rather disappointing. Hopefully once we're in the next state of Queensland everything should start to be a bit more impressive?????

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Photos

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Pancake time mmmmm

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The unfortunate but unavoidable sacrafical first pancake

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Golden Orb Spider

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Walking back from town in the rain

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What a lovely day!

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The big banana – isn’t it obvious!

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Complimentary banana, Mandy and Amy

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Aughhhhhhh

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Weeeeeee......

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Uh oh......

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Crash!!

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Mandy with a choc and nut covered frozen banana (which Nath had cos Mandy didn’t like the nuts)

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Mandy with a double choc and sprinkles covered frozen banana (Because she told the assistant that Nath had stolen the last one!!)

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The lightning storm

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Mandy walking back in her PJ’s

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His whiskers tickled!!

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Nath's new best mate