Oi oi. Left it a few days before writing another update you as we’ve moved from Byron Bay to the legendary Surfers Paradise which is known as the ‘Magaluf of Australia’ with a lengthy strip featuring many classy establishments along the way – we obviously avoided them all!
Byron Bay came to an end in suitable fashion, a beautiful lighthouse walk at the most easterly point in Australia with picturesque views to watch the sunset and it was worth it… All until a big storm came and covered the sun. Cheers.
We don’t take no easy routes here… We thought we’d take a different walk back down to the Bay on the way home… We found ourselves in the middle of a rainforest in the pitch black and using our iPhone torches to light a path home. What a struggle that was, contemplating what spider webs we would walk through or what reptiles could be hanging down from trees. A few screams were let out.. Mostly from George (Just kidding George before you have a word).
On our last full day we decided to rent bikes and travel around this beautiful town to see what we could do and view… We ended back at the lighthouse. There’s a reason why lighthouses are where they are clearly… Never have I climbed hills like it on a bike and I probably won’t bother ever again! Stopping off at secluded beaches and having a dip (Alone – these two are wimps – not even joking this time George) to cool off was just perfect, golden sands, clear blue seas.. I hated it, not!
On our final night out I managed to get chatting to a couple of men (don’t jump to conclusions here) and being the professional that I am obviously, I proceeded to pitch myself to some strangers and discuss their financial planning business to which they claim to turnover $800’000 each a year after only 6 years… Pretty impressive and a LinkedIn request got sent to back up there story… This is how my nights are here, epic. I even got a business card so I’m staying here forever… Just kidding.
Next stop… Surfers Paradise..
Now I can’t surf, we’ve established that in the last blog. So to my delight we have had pretty terrible weather all week bar the last two days. I guess that’s just part and parcel of travelling… It’s not all sun and beaching. We actually had to find things to do to entertain ourselves. It’s safe to say I’m basically now a pro bowler….. I got a Turkey (3 strikes in a row) and an overall score of 174. #Scenes
We had a dabble at ultimate pool, jacuzzi in the rain, shopping, bowling again, food, the occasional goon and lots of sleep. One event we did decide to do was a day at the races.. If you know me, you know I love horse racing and love a bet. What more could go wrong? Well the fact I didn’t pick a single winner wasn’t a great start. No but in all seriousness we had a great day watching the horses in the sun and relaxing as per usual.
We were out here for two pretty epic sporting events however. Who doesn’t want to be able to say they watched the Rugby World Cup final between Australia and New Zealand in Australia. It was an occasion I’ll give them that but we rooted for New Zealand obviously and we were victorious. The Gold Coast has a large influx of Kiwi’s so either way it was party time and the car horns still beeping at 9am clearly showed it was a long night for many!
Next we have the Melbourne Cup.. ‘The race that stops a nation’ and it really does. A horse race manages to get the people of Australia a bank holiday day off work!!! The race itself, well we won’t go into that too much as 125/1 donkey somehow romped home and we all lost our money but hey the place was alive and kicking on that day. 
With the weather perking up we thought we would have a venture and go off to ‘Wet ‘n’ Wild’ (waterpark), again setting of that legendary scene in the inbetweeners where Neil drops the kids off down a flume and gets a covering at the end. Now I’ve been to many water parks but I’ve never been on some of these rides. One was literally you stand high up in the air on a platform which after 3, it’s collapses like a cat flap and you shoot vertically down a tube at some serious speed.. I played it down as if I didn’t care and only 3 of us had the bottle to do it and secretly I was nervous but it was epic I have to admit. I even got myself to the gate of a bungee / rope swing to go on it (I was genuinely scared at this prospect as it was ridiculously high and although I’ve done a skydive already, the thought of a bungee never has appealed to me).. Unfortunately we were unable to go on due to high winds forcing it to close just as we queued up .. Gutted!! A great ‘family’ day out with the crew and something to tick off the Australia bucket list. 
Currently we are now in Brisbane, a beautiful city to walk around. I appear to have a fascination with skyscrapers, I can’t stop looking up when underneath them – some are absolutely huge here. We’ve spent our first day on a man made beach created in the city centre which is pretty damn cool, perfect in the 30C temp for today! We’re here until next Wednesday.. A trip to the Australia Zoo awaits (dedicated to Steve Irwin) so expect an obligatory picture of me and a Kaola Bear as you’re able to hold them in this state by law!
Will continue to keep updating! Home is very close to my thoughts, missing many!
Lots of love x
Trip of a lifetime... 