Day 66- Fri 14th

Next stop...Surfers Paradise. It didnt take long to get here and as we drove over the border into Queensland the time went back an hour and we entered the most commercial beach resort that i had seen in a while. We had been warned that it was built up but i hadnt grasped how much so. There were lots of high rise buildings, mainly hotels and apartments, along the beach front and carrying on a few blocks back. Every street corner had some sort of fast food outlet and there were pimped up cars zooming down the main highway. It reminded me of South Beach, Miami. Luckily the bus station was 5 minutes from our hotel, we were staying at the Islander Hotel for the next 5 nights. The hotel had converted part of its building into a hostel and so the rooms were decent and had their own bathrooms. We were in a four share and it had a tv and balcony overlooking the pool area. We were still allowed to use the hotel's facilities as well as the hostel's own kitchen and laundry. The hotel was in a great location; 5 minutes to the beach and less than that to the supermarket and main shopping area. We went straight to the beach which was just as nice as Byron and had a few more flagged areas for people to swim. In the evening we went to the weekly night market which sold some lovely stuff and then went for pizza which we had to take home in doggy bags as there was too much of it.

Day 67 - Sat 15th

In the morning Lisa and I took advantage of the hotel's squash court, felt like i had not played in ages. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool as it was very hot. We had booked ourselves onto a bar crawl which started at 5pm so we didnt have much time to get ready before we were at the first bar. We went to five different places all giving us a free drink and some had food. The last place was a club called Bedroom which had really cool beds all over the place which were nice to just relax on. Even by the time we got there it was still only 10.30pm! Angie and I left before the others and could not resist a subway on the way home...reminded me of my times in Watford after Destinys!

Day 68- Sun 16th

We didnt do a great deal today as it was raining and there doesnt seem to be much to do in Surfers unless you want to spend a fortune going to all the different theme parks that are near by. We made dinner in the hostel's kitchen which was a bit of a nightmare as we had picked the peak time and there seemed to be ten other people trying to cook pasta. It was sunday so of course we watched 'so you think you can dance?' and also 'centre stage' which was a girlie film about dancing.

Day 69 - Mon 17th

Again it was raining today so all we could do was go for a walk around the town and along the beach. It is St Patricks Day today so we went to have dinner at one of the irish bars called O'Malleys. It started to fill up and was full of irish backpackers and people wearing green. We bumped into the irish lads we had met in Melbourne and one of them was dressed up as a leprachaun, they had all brought hats from back home especially for St Paddys!! We moved onto the other irish bar which happened to be across the road but it wasnt very busy so we tried a few other places before ending up in Bedroom. We stayed in there for a while, it was so much nicer then the other night when it had been rammed full of people. All in all it was a pretty good St Paddys day.

Day 70- Tues 18th

We found the Surf Club on the beach and i had a delicious fry up..we are starting to realise that the surf clubs have the best food. We wanted to do something today so we went to Pacific Fair which was a huge mall only ten minutes away which also had a cinema complex. We had all wanted to see 'The Other Boleyn Girl' for a while so we went to see that. Luckily tickets are half price on a tuesday otherwise it would have been pretty expensive, even more than back home. The film was brilliant and i would recommend going to see it. We spent our last night not doing alot, i think we had definitely had enough time in Surfers and we were ready to move on.