I arrived in Gold Coast late yesterday afternoon. The bus ride from the airport to the main tourist area was surprisingly long and even more surprising was finding myself on the top bunk after I checked in. I've stayed in over a dozen hostels and never once have found myself on the top bunk. I didn't know what to do initially but I channeled the energy and stubbornness that my brother would have attributed to it and figured, like Jurassic Park, life would find a way.
The girls in my room were very nice though. I chatted with them for a bit and then headed out to walk around and see what Gold Coast is all about. I'm actually staying more specifically in Surfer's Paradise, which I guess is a suburb of sorts of Gold Coast. At least that's what Alana made it sound like when I told here where I was staying.
Surfer's Paradise
The hostel is just down the block from the beach so it was easy to find this "surfer's paradise" and see the massive number of people who were on the beach and swimming in the surf. I didn't actually notice any surfers, it definitely wasn't like Bondi beach in Sydney which is littered with so many surfers that you wonder how they don't all collide with each other all the time in the surf.I got to the beach just as the sun was setting and got to enjoy watching the sun dip behind the skyscraper tall apartments and hotels. Just across from the beach is a long shopping area, filled with tourist shops, surf shops, tons of swimwear stores, and about one million kebab shops. There is a serious kebab shop plague in Surfer's Paradise. Almost all of them have identical menus and food too so it's not like they vary in styles or variety of food available.
The area is very reminiscent of Waikiki, Hawaii but without the charm and about a hundred times more commercialised. Like if you took a Long Island shopping mall and slapped it next to the beach. The hordes of screaming children don't help either. And before you call me a heartless demon I don't mean babies, I mean small children. It's like the masses of Australian 4-7 year olds genetically must be ill behaved and screeching at all times. I haven't encountered that back home in Melbourne but everywhere else on the east coast that I've been has been teeming with them like the beginning of a really bad family movie.
Backpackers Night Out
With the sun setting it was time to find dinner and a couple drinks to bring back to the hostel party room with me. I had planned on going to the bar crawl that was going on that night in hopes of meeting a few new people and having a good time before the nightmare that I thought getting into the top bunk would be. After grabbing a pie from the grocery and a six pack of cider I came back to the hostel, dropped off my things, and headed to the party room. The party room here is two tables with some ikea stools, a third table set up for beer pong, a pool table, and a cafe that is only open in the mornings. I approached the table that had a bunch of people drinking and asked if I could sit with them and proceeded to join a game called Piccolo that was on someone's phone. From what I could tell it is a combination of a bunch of drinking games and randomizes the order of who is selected to participate in a challenge or truth or dare. Once we got the kinks out it was a lot of fun, and then we were off to the bars with our new best friends.We went to four different clubs, and at each one were given a free drink. Pretty standard bar crawl stuff. Myself, a Canadian, and two Welsh girls made a girls pact to stay together for the whole night, which surprisingly worked until we reached the final club which was pretty much at capacity. I don't even think the Welsh girls made it much further then the bar at that one or they could have just skipped it altogether. Regardless the Piccolo pose had a blast together as we found ourselves making friends with the groups from the other two hostels who were part of the party. The first club was our favorite, called Retro's it played only music from the 80s, 90s, and 00s, which if you ask me is some of the best music to dance to. It was while we were there dancing that the girls group revealed their ages. The three of them were 22, and just like in a sitcom the three of them turned in unison and asked how old I was and then their jaws were on the floor when I told them. I quickly realized that there were two groups at the party - the 22-24 year olds and the 30-35 year olds, everyone in between conspicuously missing. It was still a great experience and now I find myself in the hostel saying hi to all the faces I saw the night before.
Byron Bay
I managed, somehow, to get into my bed and out of it without breaking my neck or anything else. I had originally planned to spend my Sunday on a tour of Byron Bay that I had paid for via Viator. I got a couple missed calls and then, just as I was starting to get settled in the room after arriving at the hostel, the receptionist came up to tell me that the tour operator had called to tell me that they were cancelling the tour and would be refunding me the money.All well and good but I still wanted to see this mystical place that literally everyone who's been to the east coast of Australia has raved about. So I got up, for a second time, got dressed and headed out for the day to drive myself to Byron Bay. It took forever to get a car, the car rental agent wanted to have a connection and heart to heart talk with every customer who came in the door. Finally I got my car and was off to head south to Byron Bay.
The most annoying part of the trip was having to be back by the time the rental place closed at 4pm. So I headed straight to the furthest point of my trip, Byron Bay Lighthouse which is also the eastern most point of mainland Australia. The second most annoying part was paying $8 to park my car there. The rental agent had warned me that parking was all paid in Byron Bay but I didn't think it would be highway robbery. Still, it was interesting looking out across the vast ocean and imagining that America was just over the horizon. I wondered if that's how immigrants felt as they crossed the ocean in search of a new home.
After looking out across the ocean and waving at my home country that lay somewhere out there I got back in the car and headed into town to find the hippie commune that supposedly inhabits Byron. I honestly really wasn't sure where to go and after driving around the town in circles for a couple minutes I stumbled upon a huge marketplace. I knew at the very least I was bound to find one hippie and best case scenario I'd be able to get something delicious from one of the food carts I could see near the entrance. Once again parking was a real pain. This time it was free, which is what drove me down that road to begin with, but it was completely packed with cars. I nearly got stuck going up a dirt path which turned to sand in search of a spot. I turned back and nearly gave up hope when a spot opened up right next to one of the entrances.
I walked around (and sweated my butt off). Sure enough here were all the ageing hippies that the guidebooks talk about. They were selling all kinds of handmade clothing, bags, belts, and one stand even had healing crystals. There was a ton of food stalls and juice bars. I was so hot that I ended up getting two juices - one at the beginning of my trek and one at the end. I didn't see any goods of any great interest to make me buy them but I did find a cool looking postcard that I picked up to send home to my Grandmother. I've been here nearly a month and haven't written her at all, so I'm going to try to get better about that. After exploring the whole marketplace I hopped back in the car and started my journey back.
Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary
I am sure I've written about it before (found it here) but a big motivation for me in coming to Australia the first time was seeing the things that my grandparents brought back with them from their trip here. They went on an epic adventure to conquer the country too and one of the things that they brought back was a photo of them holding a koala. I found out on my first trip here that there's only one part of Australia that let's you do this anymore and it just so happens that there's a wildlife sanctuary in Gold Coast that specializes in this.
So I left Byron a little early to try and catch a koala photo that would hopefully look like the one my grandparents took. I hustled my way to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and thought maybe I can get just the koala photo and bounce. I didn't bother to try and negotiate with the ticket person since their signs about how they are a not-for-profit were everywhere and played right into my guilt. So $50 for a ticket to get in, and another $25 for a photo then I stood around and watching what was left of my two hours before I had to return the car slowly fade and dwindle into a nail biting hour and fifteen minutes. In 45 minutes all I managed to do was wait in line and then HOLD THE FLUFFIEST BABY KOALA. Seriously, this thing was bonkers cute. They quickly took a photo of us and then took him back. The handler explained that they're trying to train the baby to be chill with being held and then let me pet him before I left.
I walked around for a bit longer and then grabbed my photo and high tailed it back to the car rental place. I got there with about 20 minutes to spare, just enough for me to be sure that I had crossed my t's and dotted my i's.
Back to Surfer's Paradise Beach
After dropping off the car successfully I grabbed some waters to rehydrate and then went to the beach. I decided at the last minute not to bring my bathing suit with me on this trip because it's just such a pain to handle when wet. Besides I just spent last weekend hanging out in the ocean, did I really need to do it again? Then I dipped my toes in the water and saw exactly why everyone was crowded into the small square of swimmable, life guarded water. The water was so cold and nice compared to the brutally hot sun. I stood there for a while just cooling down and enjoying the sun set again.
Now I am here in my hostel, and after killing a baby cockroach that tried to crawl across the keyboard as I was typing on it, deciding what to do for the night. The Canadian from the girl's crew found me sitting here and asked what I had been up to so I gave her the 30 second synopsis. She was shocked, having slept in and then sat on the beach all afternoon herself. The plan is to probably hang out tonight in the hostel and I told her I wouldn't be going out probably but I would tomorrow before I leave. I want to be well rested for the sweat fest that is going to be the Australia Zoo (home of Steve Irwin) tomorrow.
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