'Australia's biggest playground..'

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We made it to the Gold Coast! After a rainy week in Sydney we hadn't actually seen much of Sydney centre, just stuck around the surrounding area, shopping and movie watching and playing with kiddies.. we spent one touristy day in the centre with the opera house, the bridge and up the big tower (centre point) which Jay had never been up before. I think he found the day quite strange, being a tourist in a city he lived in for nearly a year... but it's strange, living in London for 14 years, I think the only vaguely touristy thing I've done is the London Eye, and that was new when I did it so novelty value.. anyway. That was the Friday, plans were to go back there on the sunday for Darling harbour, aquarium etc..

On Saturday we went up to Cronulla, wandered along the beach, played in the waves, ate icecream and fish and chips, all very fun :D was SO windy though!
Sunday, was lovely and sunny so off we set for darling harbour, though I went to an atm to get money out.. and my card was declined. Crap. So, we had a total of $50 (Jays card was still up on the coast), not enough to get into Sydney, to the aquarium, ferry to manly and all the other awesome stuff we had wanted to do, so change of plan. We went to Woolworths (which over here is a supermarket) and bought lots of tasty food for ~$20 and went to the park for a picnic. Lay around in the sun and read the paper (well Jay did, I read about Anj & Brads latest row in a trashy mag) and planned out budget... oh dear. It suddenly dawned on me what Jay has been telling me for quite some time.. we don't have enough money to do everything that catches our (well my) eyes.. no sky diving over Sydney or buying large amounts of trashy crap 😞 but its ok, we'll survive, I'm sure..
Spent a lot of the week playing with Jay's little counsins Benji and Maya who are very sweet (3&5) but very lively!

So Monday, we flew up to coast. Oh! and in the airport, I tried my card again in an atm and.. IT WORKED :D i have money again, don't know what happened there but hey?! For those who don't know, Jay is from the Gold Coast and hadn't told his family he was back in Aus, so Andy (Jay's uncle) called Jay's mum (Janine) and told her that he was coming up for buisness and could she pick him up from inside the airport? So she agreed, and came to the airport to meet Andy.. but then Jay and I walk through arrivals. It was very sweet, she had no idea he was even planning to leave the uk, never mind was back on the Gold Coast. So when she had calmed down slightly we drove back to Jay's house (which is awesome!!) to see his sis Liv and step-dad Craig, who were equally suprised to see him back!

Our first day on the coast, yesterday, was spent lying around the house (in that way we do so well) watching movies and reading my guide book picking all the places I want to go ('so what if it's 100km from where we are') and plans are changing all over again, we're now thinking of scrapping melbourne and going further up north to visit the barrier reef.. who knows. We'll hopefully be back down to Sydney in a few weeks and perhaps out to Melbourne and Adelaide and then vague thoughts of Uluru&Alice Springs, or (I'm still fighting for this one) Tasmania!! But for the next few weeks at least we'll be up here, on the Coast, Brisbane, Collandra, Mt Tamborine, Yamba and loads of other places I can't even remember the names of..
For today though we're heading into the famous 'surfers paradise' as the sun is out to play :D so thats all for now, will keep you updated as we explore the coast.
ciao xxx

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