The journey up to Surfer's Paradise was a lot better, at only 2 hours instead of 12! As we arrived we were greeted by a mass of high rise buildings, all of which were hotels, and streets full of tacky tourist shops. It was pretty much what we had expected, and okay for a couple of days. Our hostel was part of a big hotel, the older rooms of which were sold at cheaper rates for backpackers. Included in this we had free use of all the hotel facilities; pool, steam room, spa and tennis courts! My attempts at tennis we pretty bad, but it was good fun.

On our second day we caught the bus out to Warner Brothers Movieworld :) Some of the rides were awesome, especially the Superman Extreme rollercoaster which had a huge incline followed by an almost vertical drop right at the beginning. I have to admit though that my favourite was the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster which was all in the dark and felt like we were inside a pinball game. I had fun shouting Scooby Dooby Dooooooooooooo during all the drops, much to the annoyance of the other people in our pod i'm sure! We actually had a good laugh with a couple of chavs as we all started going "woooooo" together everytime we went around a corner which was a funny, yet altogether bizzare, experience! The log flume was awesome as well, as it had a big backwards drop as well as the main fall, so we ended up thoroughly soaked! The parade in the afternoon was good too (for me anyway) as I like seeing all the characters...expecially Austin Powers who I made a love heart shape to with my hands and he gestured "call me baby" back, haha. Ah, gotta love the mojo.

Although Surfer's Paradise was a bit more tacky than other places we've visited and not exactly "Australian" in feel, it was a good, lighthearted bit of fun for a couple of days.

-S