We have a life!

The best part of moving to surfers was the lifestyle, i was working less hours and getting paid less but i had 100x more fun! Every day off i had we went on an adventure. We went to theme parks, Movie World, Sea World, and a water slide park called Wet and Wild. We had a surfing lesson, you can't live in surfers paradise and not surf! It is a lot harder than it looks and i wasn't very good but i had a lot of fun! I'm pretty proud that by the end of the 2 hour lesson despite being exhausted, i managed to stand up on the board on a mini wave. That is until i realised my bikini had fallen down and i was flashing my bum to the whole beach, i swiftly fell off and drank a few litres of salt water!

We went to an inflatable water obstacle course in Broadbeach which was so much fun! You had to climb, slide and jump around this huge inflatable course, Total Wipeout style. There was one part where one person would sit on the end of a half inflated part of the course, then two people would jump on the other end which forced the air along and flung the person way up into the air and then into the sea. It was my favourite section, but i think i got a bit of whiplash!

On another day off we went to Currumbin National Park which had beautiful waterfalls running through it. These were fenced off but we decided to hop over the fence, scale a wall and have a swim in one of the waterfall pools. It was a bit cold but such a stunning place. Queensland is very humid around the summer time and so there were a lot of mosquitoes, especially in muggy rainforest areas like Currumbin! We came out looking like we had some kind of disease but it was worth it!

Another adventure was to Tree Top World. I went with Cheryl (whose actual name is Jenny and who looks exactly like me!) and we spent 5 hours navigating an ariel assault course in the canopies of some very tall trees! You had to do zip lines, balance along logs, swing off ropes, climb through tunnels. It was absolutely exhausting but so much fun. We kept getting stuck along the way as we were laughing so much we couldn't move on. We came out covered in mud and scratches and ready for a long nap!!

We also made it a weekly activity to go to Air Factory, or as we called it Trampoline World. It's basically a huge warehouse full of trampolines and cushioned walls where you can bounce around and do flips without hurting yourself. It was the best fun ever but it did make me realise how unfit i am!

We were able to do all these things because one of the girls and the only guy in the cave, Viebs and Jeppe, had a car, bought for previous road trips. In Australia you don't have to have car insurance and if you do, the car is insured not the person so anyone can drive your car. This meant that there was always a car available to borrow as long as you replaced the petrol used. It was perfect!

We all had so much fun and i really appreciated and valued the quality of life i had there! The hostel cleaning did get a bit tedious and the manager became a bit of a mental case trying to get us to scrub bleach between tiles with a toothbrush for hours on end so we found a small flat down the road for $120 a week with it's own pool and decided to move in! It was a really relaxed week-by-week contract, more of a holiday home than a long term flat, but that was just what we needed!

The weather in Surfers Paradise was incredible, despite the odd cyclone here and there (it was 'storm season)! It was around 35 degrees and gleaming sunshine all day most days. When we weren't off on adventures or at work you could normally find us by the pool or on the beach enjoying the sun with an ice cream or a cold cider. Surfers Paradise definitely has a soft spot in my heart and i'm pretty sure i owe most of that to the incredible group of people i met there, both in the hostel and where i worked. Everyone was so kind, friendly and fun. However after a year of travel my lovely parents bought me a return ticket so i could have a little holiday back home. So with a heavy heart i said goodbye to Surfers and all my cave family and headed on the long journey to England!!