Week 12

Surfers

We arrived in Surfers Paradise looking forward to our upmarket apartment we had booked overlooking the Gold Coast beach, we left some of our group who were staying at the hostel round the corner.  Once we arrived at the Surfers International apartment we had once again cemented our flash-packers label.  Our apartment was excellent with all mod cons and had an amazing view, once all our bags were unpacked it was off to the nearest travel agent to book tickets for some of the three theme parks they had at Surfers Paradise.

Wet & Wild

We met up with some of the others who were staying in the hostel - Ria, Nut Nut, My Shell, Sarah and Frodo and off we headed to the Wet & Wild theme park.  It was a scorching hot day so we were all looking forward to getting extremely wet. When we arrived the first thing that struck us was the vast amount of rides they had on offer, so a quick change into our swimming gear and off we were splashing and shooting down tubes, slopes and strangely a massive cone.  Unfortunately no camera was taken due to the conditions so you will have to wait till the beach shots to see us in just our shorts again, haha.

Wicked Pub Crawl

While we was in Surfers we decided to go on a pub crawl not one of our own but one that was set up for us.  So once we had all finished getting ready and of course after a few beers to help us on our way we headed to the meeting place and of course the first bar of many.  On arrival we was given a free drink (always nice) and with the vast amount of females around we had the feeling this could be a very entertaining evening, especially as surfers is meant to be one of the party places up the East coast as quoted 'guaranteed to go off every night'.

Once the drinks were finished in the first bar, it was off to the second bar in a bowling alley with the 4 girls in tow Nut Nut, Ria, My Shell and Sarah.  Another free shot on arrival then we headed to our bowling lane.  After a couple of hours or so the crawl started coming to life as we moved from bar to bar consuming copious amounts of alcohol, another bar (sorry about not remembering the names but we was pretty boozy) led us into a female beauty competition which we plotted up and gave the girls on show our support.  

Then onto another bar which was ideally named the Bed Bar, as it was scattered with double beds around it.  I can safely say that our memory had some what faded by now, as the others faded too myself and Jacko decided to grab a good old faithful kebab, where we bumped into our old friend Tarren who was in Byron Bay with us, with that we led him back to ours to carry on drinking with Alby & Johno.

Movie World

Warner Bros Movie World was our next port of call, Johno and Alby didn?t fancy it so me and Jacko made our way via picking up Nut Nut & Ria to the theme park.  A quick run down on Warner Bros Movie World is that it is otherwise known as "Hollywood on the Gold Coast" and claims to be Australia's number one tourist attraction.  You can mingle with your favourite Loony Tunes characters, all of whom leap at any photo opportunities, it is also full of movie-themed rides as well as numerous stunt shows.  So with all this in mind we were looking forward to a day as big kids.

On arrival we were taken aback by the sheer cleanliness of the place and also the rides looked scarier then anticipated.  The main rides there were Batwing, Superman, Lethal Weapon, Scooby Doo, plus plenty of others.  The first ride we went on was the Batwing you start at the bottom then it slings you to the top with ferocious speed, before hanging then dropping you back down.  As we was walking around looking for our next ride the Scooby Doo show started so we watched that for a while before descending on which turned out to be our favourite ride SUPERMAN, this ride was a rollercoaster that shot you out 0-100km/h in 2 seconds (that's not fast, that's Superman fast) round loops, upside down the lot, we ended up on that ride on many occasions.

Scooby Doo ride followed (which was excellent) then the Lethal Weapon ride which is similar to Nemesis at AltonTowers.  Now feeling a little queasy we decided to go and watch a stunt show (Police Academy) followed by more rides then to the 3D cinema to watch a Shrek show, which had added extras i.e. when spiders appeared on screen the chair in front would blow air on your feet, and when the donkey spoke, water would be squirted at you.  Once that was finished more rides, attractions and various photos were accomplished, we finished with the parade which ended a fantastic day.

Bubble Fun

As we waved goodbye to Surfers, we were to be making our way to Brisbane, but not before a stop off via a Zorbin centre.  Zorbin if you're not sure what it is, is a giant plastic ball with a smaller ball inside which is filled with water, people, throw in a giant hill and some bumps and that's Zorbin.  As it only was three people to a Zorb, Alby decided not to participate so me, Jacko and Johno whacked our swimming gear on and went ahead.  As we entered the ball (yes all three in one) we tilted above the hills, before rolling at speed slipping and sliding everywhere, arms and legs were all over the place, excellent fun!!!