I promise to try and put some more appropriate photos on my blog at some point...

Anyway, I got up at around 9.30am after some scarily vivid dreams involving rescuing children from a burning house, driving a speedboat on land, and trying to use a cigarette as a mobile phone, amongst other unrealistic things. I had mainly packed last night so I got ready, packed the rest of my things and we checked out.

We had an hour or so to kill before our Greyhound, so I went online to research theme parks. It turns out that Warner Bros Movieworld is 14km north of Surfers Paradise (we had for some reason thought the theme parks were near Byron Bay, our stop afterwards). We only have one night planned in Surfers so we will have to go tomorrow, I'm quite excited as we've heard the theme parks around the Gold Coast are really good so I think it'll be a fun day out.

We walked to the Greyhound terminal to catch our 11.30am bus to Surfers Paradise. We saw some boxes saying 'day old chicks' containing cute little chicks being wheeled into a storage room next to the coach - I wonder why they are transporting day old chicks somewhere?! And surely once they reach their destination they won't be one day old anymore?

On the way along the motorway we saw all the theme parks and I got really excited (i'm a rollar coaster junkie), so I was naturally a bit disappointed when Hannah and Vicky told me they had changed their minds and just wanted to go to the beach tomorrow. A theme park wouldn't be fun on my own so I can't go either really. It was one of the things I was most looking forward to along this part of the coast, so I sulked for a bit at having lost my chance, but consoled myself with the fact that I'd at least save some money, and have already asked Ed if we can go to Alton Towers when I get back!

Our hostel picked us up from the Greyhound station, and it was quite a way from town. Luckily there is a free bus to town so we had some lunch and then got a lift to the beach in Surfers Paradise. There are high rise apartment buildings everywhere, and a long, sandy beach with waves crashing in (hence the paradise situation for the surfers). We had boogieboards from our hostel but I only used mine to sunbathes on! I went in the sea for a bit, the waves are fun but I prefer the calm sort of sea where you can go for a nice swim and bob around for ages without being sucked under by a wave every 30 seconds. I very much enjoyed the sunbathing aspect of the beach though. There are huge restrictions on where you can swim due to the currents I suppose, and you aren't allowed to swim after 6pm when the lifeguards go home. I had a nice afternoon lying in the sun and reading my book, which I did for nearly four hours (and didn't burn!)

We had arranged to be picked up by the hostel at 6pm, so at about 5.30pm we went to Woolworths to get some food for tonight (I only got grapes as I already have some food) and to a bottleshop to get some wine.

We got to the bus station at 5.55pm, and waited. At 6.20pm the bus still hadn't arrived so Hannah called the hostel. They claimed he had already been so we said that he actually hadn't, and could he come and get us now, but then they said they didn't actually know where the driver was, so we would have to get a taxi or bus. A taxi was $22, so out of the question, so we had to wait half an hour for a bus which cost us $4.60! Later on back at the hostel, the driver found us and apologised for forgetting and offered us a bottle of wine, so all was forgiven. We didn't accept though as we already had some goon (a box of wine).

We showered and changed and starting drinking our goon with dinner, before sharing a taxi with four Dutch guys to a club called Sin City at around 10pm, dancing non stop for five hours, getting a bus back at 3.30am and collapsing into bed.

It was a really good night!

xxx