Day 85 -Surfers Paradise and Wet n Wild - Monday 9th January 2012

Early start today as we had a lot to squeeze in. We had collected our rental car the night before so we were all prepared and ready to hit surfer's paradise for the morning and move on to wet n wild for the rest of the day! We spent about an hour in our ultra-cool Hyundai accent and arrived in the concrete jungle of Surfer's paradise! The only way to explain this place is …. Well….. it's….. um….. ok it's like Benidorm on steroids! Soph had heard about a place called my Oliver's kitchen that apparently did awesome breakfasts for $10. After a bit of a wonder we found the restaurant and had an all you can eat, buffet style breakfast for $10 each and seeing as we had an energy packed day planned at wet n wild, we stocked up on hash brown, sausages, fried bread - you get the picture! With breakfast and a quick stroll around Surfers done and our bodies over flowing with calories we rolled back to the car and headed to wet n wild. Half an hour later we were there, it looked amazing! Tubes, rides, wave machines, Jacuzzis and even fairground rides - all in 34 degree heat! First up was the mammoth falls - all four of us in a huge rubber ring which gets sent down a massive water slide but instead of going from top to bottom it swings you from side to side, Soph was screaming like a 5 year old girl - V funny! Then we went on the Surf-rider which is not a water slide but a fair ground ride just like the old Mary Rose like back home but on a surfboard and 30 metres up in the air! Then Mach 5 - Australia's longest slides - 200 metres, but not too scary. Next up was Tornado - this is their super slide, from a 15 metre high platform into a 40 metre long tunnel into the middle of a storm of hammering rain and water shoots! Then Kamikaze, which is a 2 person ring plunging down a sheer 11 metre drop at 50 km an hour and then back up the other side and back again! After all this heart pumping action we needed to chill so we went on a trip down the lazy river through calypso beach, it wasn't as relaxing as Soph had hoped as I kept dunking, splashing and bombing her, but she got her own back and teamed up with Danny and Nikki and flipped me!! The next ride was the super 8 aqua race which is 8 lanes next to each other and a race to the bottom… I of course won with Danny a close second - Soph came last!! Last up was the one that everyone raves about - the Aqua Loop! This is four high tubes all in different colours with a massive queue. After about 40 minutes we reached the top where 4 members of staff put you onto a glass pod where you stand on a suspended floor as it counts down like a rocket launching… Then the floor falls away as you drop about 30 metres into a full loop that goes back over itself and then shoots you out into the pool - amazing. The only problem was that not everyone gets round the loop - some fall back the other way and get stuck in the lower bit of the loop where they have an exit! So we were all panicking about making it round but luckily enough we all did. That done and completely knackered and me burnt on the nose for the 100th time, we headed home. Back at Byron, we dropped the car off and wait for our bus to Brisbane which ended up being 2 hours late - we could've spent more time at Wet n Wild if we'd known! The journey to Brisbane was about 3 hours and as we arrived Danny and Nikki were already there so we all jumped into a cab to our apartment. 10 mins later we were there, the apartment was awesome so we had a quick look around then hit the sack with water still in our ears!