Sufferer's Parasite? Personally I think that's rather harsh!

Hey All!

Our last night in Byron was so good, we drank loads of wine and took some photos before we left to go out (poor Jake had about 20 cameras to take the same photo for everyone!), and then we went down to the beach hotel again, where they had another really good live act on. They were a 5 piece comprising of a funky-house dj, a female vocalist who contributed the odd "ooh" and "aah" and "yeh", 2 guys on bongo drums and a front man who alternated between a sax and a flute. They were amazing and we had a right good dance, and of course stopped on the way back for a kebab (3rd night in a row!). It was really hard saying goodbye to Jodie, Emily, Jemma and Shelby who were staying in Byron for a bit longer, cos we've all been together since leaving Sydney and made really good friends. Jodie, Emily and Jemma all live in the northwest so that's quite good that they're close, but chances are we'll probably never see Shelby again as she's from British Columbia.

Anyway, it was really hard leaving Byron on Monday morning, I had so much fun there and just loved the atmosphere, I would recommend any Australia-goer to go there and give it a week at least. Our driver from Byron to Surfer's was quite an ass really, he talked for almost all of the 2hr journey, mostly nonsensical waffle, but he totally slated Surfer's - he kept referring to it as 'Sufferer's Parasite' and talking about how rubbish and tourist ridden it was and how you might as well just go to Miami or LA. Fair enough if it's not got much culture or character, but we reckoned he just wanted to keep us on his bus. We arrived at the Surfer's Paradise Transit Centre about 8:45am (Queensland is an hour behind NSW as they don't believe in Daylight Saving Time) and got a courtesy bus to our hostel. It's a lot smaller than I imagined, and because it's got a bar you can't bring in your own alcohol (which is rubbish). We also ran into Tony in the reception (a guy who was with us from Sydney to Byron but left Byron early to go to Brisbane, and now he's on his way back down), so that was really cool. Anyway, we rang David and Linda once we were sorted, but there was no answer so we decided to go and have a mooch into the centre.

Our hostel is about a 15-20mins walk from the centre, the same as our hostel in Byron to the beach, but because there's nothing but restaurants, motels and apartment buildings along the way it's a rather boring trek and feels like it takes forever. Surfer's Paradise is the type of place that is always being knocked down and rebuilt, and although it's on the coast it's lined with high-rise buildings and skyscrapers; it's nowhere near as chilled out and mellow as Byron, it actually reminds me a lot of what San Diego looked like. Anyway, once we (finally) got into the centre I was shocked to see a HMV - would you believe it! We went for some dinner at Subway (oh, the shame!) and then went for a Boost (remember, the smoothies that they had in Sydney?). We got chatting to the cute guy behind the counter, who was clearly on his first week as his supervisor was standing over his shoulder and frowning upon his excess of zeal with us in particular. Eventually she pointed out the long queue of customers behind us and we had to part ways. We had a mooch around the shopping centre (which there is an abundance of here, you don't have to go far without running into yet another Trafford Centre-style shopping mall) and got some supplies from Woolworths, before coming back and chilling out outside the bar all afternoon.

After making some tea we sat outside the bar some more (there's not much to do when your hostel is like 5000 miles from the centre!) and met some people Tony had made friends with, a guy called Mike from Canada (everyone here is from Canada) and a really cool guy called Graham who was born in South Africa, has lived in Belgium and Zimbabwe but now dwells in Edinburgh. Claire quickly got to work chatting him up by talking to him about the political situations in S.Africa and Zimbabwe, of which I know little so I kept quiet until I could think of the odd intelligent thing to say!

Then the hostel organised a bar crawl to compensate for us not being allowed to have our own alcohol, so we went along, naturally! We first went to an Irish Bar, I think it was called O'Malleys but I wouldn't swear by that. I bought 2 cheapy vodka drinks, got a free shot and blagged a second free shot. Then I managed to chat to Graham, and it eventually became clear that he liked me more than Claire. Oops! She didn't look impressed.

Then we moved on to a bar/nightclub called Shooters, where we got two free drinks vouchers, but because Helen had made friends with the organiser girl she managed to blag a whole drinks voucher book, which she kindly shared with all of us! It was a really good night. On the way back I finally resisted the urge to get a kebab, even though everyone else was gettin one! It was so hard! And once we were back at the hostel and I'd had a motherly lecture from Claire, Me and Graham stayed outside til about 6am chatting. I just realised today that I was up for 24 hrs on Monday. No wonder I was so tired yesterday! Anyway he moved on to Byron on Tuesday afternoon so I'll probably never see him again now. Such is life! (Those were Ned Kelly's last words you know. Bit of culture there for you.)

Anyway, I'll put yesterday's events into a next blog cos this is getting way too long. Plus you'll probably want to hear about Surfer's Paradise and not my drunken adventures!