Wednesday 25th – I checked out of the Arts Factory and got on the Oz Experience Bus for the 2nd sector of my journey. The first stop was Surfers Paradise. It’s only an hour and a half away so it was a nice, quick journey with a driver called “Pigeon”. We were dropped off at the bus station and I was picked up by staff at the Sleeping Inn hostel in a limousine!
I was put into the same room as my friend Helen (OzIntro) who'd already been there a couple of days so that was good. It looks like I’m following her up the coast! The hostel was really nice: it’s split into units and each unit comprises of a living room (with sofas and tv), a kitchen, a bathroom and 3 bedrooms each with 6 beds. So there’s only one bathroom between 18 people but luckily as it’s off-peak season there were only 8 of us in the unit staying at any one time. Had a walk around town and realised it’s a small place, just a little bit bigger than Byron but so different. There’s lots of high-rise buildings and shops selling tacky souvenirs. It was also strange after a week to wait at pedestrian crossings and hear traffic noise, I didn’t quite realize just how quiet and mellow Byron was until I left! In the evening, me, Helen and Sarah (a girl I met on the Oz Experience bus from Byron) did the Gold Coast’s Backpacker Big Night Out. We started off with a BBQ in the hostel, then a bus took us around different bars and clubs in Surfers, and it was really good! One place called Vanity has spent over $1million on their ladies bathroom because it had chandeliers, gold doors, plush sofas and even a computer with free internet!
Thursday 26th – In the morning I said goodbye to Helen as she went off to Brisbane, and me and a few girls from my dorm decided to chill out at the beach. It was a lovely day.
In the evening, the hostel had a $6 all-you-can-eat Dominos pizza night so we did that for dinner, and then went to a bar with the hostel.
Friday 27th – Today I had a really stressful day. In the morning me and 3 girls from my hostel decided we would go to a theme park called Dreamworld at night as they had a special event called Screamworld on. All the 6 big thrill rides would be open so we can ride them in the dark and instead of paying $74 for a regular day ticket, it would be $25. So I booked online and paid that morning for the 4 of us, but unfortunately we realised there was no public transport going there so we would have to rent a car. When I called the other girls to tell them this, 2 of them decided it would be too expensive and said they didn’t want to go anymore! On top of that I accidentally deleted a huge folder from my laptop by accident so my whole day was spent running around town looking for computer shops, car rental places and 2 people to buy the spare Dreamworld tickets I now had. Luckily in the evening 2 guys from the hostel said they would go and one of them had a car so me and my friend Sarah went to Dreamworld with Sean and Chris, with Sean driving. It was funny I didn’t realise that Sean was actually the owner of the hostel! They were both from Uxbridge, Sean’s cousin owns a hairdressers in South Harrow where me and my family usually go, and another cousin is a good friend of mine from work!!! Small world! The rides were good, there were 2 really good ones, and one that made me feel dizzy as it just span around way too much! The best one was “Tower of Terror”, we knew that it went through a tunnel, up a tower and then went backwards. We had to queue for half an hour, and when we got to the ride we were strapped in and faced a long tunnel ahead of us. Red lights started flickering in the tunnel and we were ready to be propelled forward, but then…. We shot BACKWARDS! Soooo fast! The tunnel lights were all around us and we were screaming so much before we got shot up in the air backwards and went up 39 stories high! We paused at the top for a brief second and then shot straight back down and through the tunnel again! I found out afterwards in 1996 it was the fastest rollercoaster in the world as it goes from 0-100kmph in 4 seconds. A good end to an otherwise bad day!
Checked out the next morning to get the bus to my next stop, Brisbane….
No comments:
Post a Comment