Surfers Paradise!

Hello again,

Since Fraser Island we have bussed our way to Brisbane, then off to Surfers Paradise… apparently some of the best surfing on the east coast of Australia! Luckily for us, our limited funds have prevented us from making fools of ourself out on the waves.

Before we enter the world of our drunken days in Surfers, we would first like to reflect on our short stay in Brisbane. We came back and spent two nights there, where we got to see our friends again (it was lots of fun) and we also went to the world famous Australia Zoo – (the home of Steve Irwin!). We took tons of photo’s and even made another video – we will post it shortly for everyone to see. There were tons of animals – including baby Tigers, which we are pretty sure anyone who sees our blog photo’s will fall in love with. We got to hop around with some kangaroos again.. pet some koala’s and camels.. watch some cool shows where the animal trainers have the animals do some pretty amazing things (They taught a parrot to roll over like a dog).. and just have an overall great time! We would talk more about it, but the pictures will tell the story when we poist them.

After leaving Brisbane, we started our 15 hour trek towards Sydney on the Greyhound bus. Luckily our first stop, Surfers Paradise, was only an hours drive. We showed up mid-day and went to the tourist information centre to find a place to stay. After choosing between 7 hostels, we wound up at “Surfers Paradise Backpackers”, which of course turned out to be a pretty shady place. They had dingy rooms with useless mattresses and on top of that – no AC! Despite all this, we stayed here for 5 nights.. the afternoons lazing on the beach, and the evenings drinking way too much goon (yes, back into the $10 box wine for us). Apparently this whole town is a complete party city.. and the club reps spent every day hounding us to go out and spend more money. It was “illegal” for us to bring our own alcohol onto the premesis; however, we of course circumvented the system and saved a lot of money. We spent several nights playing more drinking games with our roomates.. and we may just have another drinking video coming! Every night was pretty much the same.. we went out and got drunk, slept in late, and went to the beach.. so we will save you those repetitive stories. Luckily for us.. we always manage to find trouble, so we do have one story for everyone.

We were at the beach around 2 in the afternoon and we decided it was time to take a swim. Unfortunately for us, someone else decided it was time to walk down the beach stealing peoples gear. We were heading out into the ocean.. Chris was about 10 feet in, Matt about 20, when Chris turned and saw the person grabbing Matt’s stuff. He quickly yelled to Matt and took off down the beach after the would be theif. Luckily for Matt and Chris the theif wasn’t exactly an athletic fellow, and Chris quickly caught him. After Chris uttered a threat (that we won’t repeat in the blog) the man (who had fallen over) dropped everything in his hands and ran and hid behind a bush. By this time, Matt had caught up and was pondering running after the man again (as it was all Matt’s stuff the guy had stolen.. he was pretty mad). As it appeared the theif had dropped everything he had taken.. as well as a lot of stuff he had stolen from other people, Matt decided it wasn’t worth it chasing him anymore. This turned out to be a mistake.. as the man had somehow managed to hold onto Matt’s sunglasses (we think now that he must have been wearing them). We went and dropped off the other stolen gear with the lifeguard and spent the next hour looking for the theif to get Matt’s sunglasses back – which turned out to be fruitless. It was a very upsetting experience, as anyone who knows Matt knows those were his favourite sunglasses (as well as quite expensive).

We are now waiting as the bus station and the greyhound show be arriving in the next few minutes. We will upload the pictures and some movies soon for everyone to see! We will also make a few more posts from Byron Bay.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Chris and Matt