Surfers Paradise - Sunday 9th January - Friday 14th January

After the nightmare that happened with our accommodation in Byron, the only way the argument could be settled was for the money to be refunded and a free night given so long as we paid for another two nights after that. So we arrived at Aquarius with an air of caution only to find out that it's a really cool hostel. Huge lounge area with plasma screen, cleanest kitchen we've seen, it's own bar with cheap beers, a decent sized swimming pool (same we couldn't use it because of the crappy weather) and nice rooms. It was getting on when we arrived so headed down to the local Woolworths to pick up some supplies and enroute discovered that the cinema had cheap tickets on Sundays. That sorted our evening out, off we went to see 'Meet the Little Fockers' finally.

On Monday we got up all excited and headed to 'Wet n Wild' waterpark for the day. The weather was once again crap but as we were getting to be wet all day anyway we figured it was a good day for it as the queues should be shorter. On arrival Sean wanted to go on the biggest slide first so up the stairs we went and the closer we got the more scared I got. Basically you stand in this capsule, there's a countdown and the bottom drops. You then fall almost vertically before doing a loop-the-loop, fly round a bit more and come out of the bottom with a sore bank and a lot of adrenalin pumping through your body! Five years ago I had no fear when it came to things like this, but I was bricking it. I explained to Sean that if I'm scared I will be silent, if I'm loving it I'll scream and giggle like a little girl. Well guess what....when the floor dropped I was dead silent. It felt like we were falling forever. Awesome slide but bloody scary! Even Sean was scared! The park was full of awesome slides, the majority of which I was screaming and giggling whilst riding them, the only other one that saved my throat was the kamikaze. Awesome day out and finally something that the rain didn't ruin!

Suprise suprise we awoke on Tuesday to more rain and winds so decided to sleep in. At lunchtime we headed into Surfers to have a look round Surfers itself is very very commercial, lots of high rises, American chains, malls, crazy golf etc. The beach was covered in construction, so that plus the rain didn't make it stand out to others along the coast. I'm sure it would be pretty awesome on a sunny day as we have a good feeling for the place but after a couple of hours we headed back to the hostel to watch movies, kick Sean's ass at Monopoly and generally chill out. We are due to leave tomorrow for Brisbane but they are on major flood alert today so plans may change tomorrow!

Well Wednesday morning arrived and although the Greyhound was still heading to Brisbane and the hostel we were booked into was fine, we decided having seen the news that we would stay at Surfers for another night and reassess the situation in the morning. The peak of the flood is supposed to happen overnight and the weather forecast is looking up. On the bright side the sun was shining in Surfers so we headed to the beach for a couple of hours to catch some rays and jump in the surf!

We made the decision to stay again on Thursday night, so spent another day on the beach and watched Wolf Creek in the evening. Interesting when you're heading to the Outback sometime soon. Waking up on Friday morning things seemed to be improving in Brisbane and the roads appear to be reopening to the North so we have made a decision to head that way. I'm sure that the clear up will take some time and that the devastation will be pretty moving but we are safe and sound!