We left Brisbane & caught a bus down the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise. It was time for a little beach relaxation & the sun had made a reappearance just in time. We checked into our hostel & headed into the town to look around. With a mixture of souvenir shops, fairground rides & neon lights, it was like being in Australia's version of Blackpool. We found the strip of clubs & pubs fairly easily & spent the evening at an Irish Pub that had a live guitarist performing. After rocking out to some classic tunes, we headed back to the hostel, ready to hit the beach the following day.

Thankfully, the sun kept up its side of the bargain so that we could enjoy the beach to the max. Unfortunately the coastline is lined with high rise buildings, so around about 3 or 4pm their shadows were completely covering the beach, meaning that we missed out on the last 3 hours of sun!! Being tourists, we clearly weren't too hot on Australian public holidays & their rules. Apparently on Good Friday all the bottle shops & pubs are shut, meaning that we had no way of getting any goon for that evening. Once we got back to the hostel, we were told that we could get beers from their bar as long as we bought their BBQ dinner, which was the only way that they could get around the law. We had bumped into a Canadian girl called Lesley, who we had initially met on our Darwin tour, & she joined us for the evenings festivities. As soon as midnight struck, all the clubs opened, albeit for a few hours. They obviously knew that they would still draw the crowds. So we headed out for a few drinks at various bars as our hostel had arranged to get a few free drinks for us.

The following day was yet another lazy day down at the beach until late afternoon when we headed back to the hostel to meet Amylou & Sally, who were arriving from Brisbane. We worked our best sweet talking charm & convinced them to join us on the hostels pub crawl. A 'party' bus picked us up from our hostel, armed us with a glowstick & a Hawaiian lei (presumably to keep track of us over the evening) & we headed off to 5 different clubs, getting a free drink in each one. Once we had been to all 5 clubs, we were free to move between them all & se we headed back to the 'Beergarden' as they had a live band on. Everywhere was exceptionally busy as all the local Aussies had headed to the Gold Coast for a long Easter weekend. At the end of the night we went a bought a kebab, something that I haven't done in a long, long time!

The next day was yet another beach day (there wasn't mch else to do here that didn't cost a lot of money) & then we headed back to the Irish bar as the guitarist was on again, but this time he was doing an acoustic set.

Easter Monday was spent....you guessed it, on the beach. The evening was spent teaching the girls how to play Texas Hold 'em poker. We each bought a bag of gummi sweets & used them to bet. So the winner would potentially be very ill by the end.

The Tuesday was still a public holiday in Australia as they were celebrating ANZAC day (Australia & New Zealand Army Corp). This is Australia's version of Rememberance Day & there was a parade through the streets. Unfortunately we weren't up soon enough to see this. We decided to head out with the hostel one last time before we left & so we went to the usual haunts. They were a lot quieter by now as all the locals had left & headed back home.

We were due to leave for Byron Bay the following afternoon, so we didn't bother heading to the beach as normal (that & the fact that the rain had made an unwanted reappearance). So we headed off to play a round of crazy golf, which thankfully was an indoor course. After whipping Joel's arse at golf, we went & caught our bus to Byron Bay!