The Gold Coast

Its Sunday the 8th of March and I'm in Brisbane, just got here this morning. For the past week we have been traveling the gold coast. Its very hot here, and its just going to get hotter so I best get used to it. Last Sunday we ended up going to the koala hospital which was excellent, they have got to be the most adorable creatures I've ever seen. They had a huge outdoor area were the koalas stay and we went on a very interesting tour. It was very windy and 3 huge branches fell, I needed a helmet. Later that day we drove up to Coffs Harbour and just spent the night by the ocean. On Monday we took off right away for Byron bay. We heard by almost everyone we have talked to that its the best town in basically all of Australia , and it is a sweet funky little town, full of all different types of people and shops. We spent a few days there, walking around the shops, beaching it (I played in the waves for about an hour, y'all should be proud of me!), and met different people. We couldn't find a place to camp for the first night, they are really strict there about backpackers camping any were they want, probably because there are so many, there were tons of other wicked vans and camping vans. We were asking around and ran into two English couples we made buddy's with who took us under their wing. They led us to an old abandoned hippie camp called the quarry that they have been sleeping at for the past week, and we slept there after chatting all night. The second night our friends and us found an old abandoned hotel and stayed in the parking lot, but got booted out at 6am, so we went to the quarry, but got booted out again by a huffy cop. So we moved on to Surfers Paradise and got a camp site, which is pretty much paradise to us! Toilets, showers, laundry, internet and a TV! We stayed there 3 nights and it was a blast, it was mostly other backpackers in vans cuz they to realized you can't park on the streets on the gold coast. We went to an amusement park, which not only had sick rides but a small zoo as well-I fed a kangaroo, saw a hundred different kinds of amazing birds, there is a bird called the Ibis that you see everywhere and its the funniest bird! Dingos, which look like any normal dog, wombats, which look like RUS's- or pigs, crocs, koalas, lizards, snakes... it was fantastic. We went to hooters that night cuz we NEEDED wings, plus they were buy 20 get 20, they thought we were amazing cuz we got the hottest ones (they really don't know hot here), and were drinking pints, no girls drink beer here. The next day we went to the ocean and played in the waves, and theses are serious waves . Biggest ones yet, dangerous. Never turn your back on the ocean. Playing in the waves have got to be one of the funnest things for me, but i'll only go in if there are loads of other people. Some times I psych myself out and think i'll get eaten by a shark and have to catch a wave in. Yesterday we went zorbing!!! It was hilarious! You basically get in a hamster ball with some water in it and roll down a hill. Genius. We stayed in a camper park in Jacobs Well last night (down by the river), I got stung by something I stepped on. It was pretty painful. My flip flops broke about four days ago and all though I have trainers i've just been going barefoot, actually that's pretty common here, some people never ware shoes, no shoes no shirt no problem! I did get some flips today though in downtown Brisbane. Jess has a friend here so we'll meet up with them, and hopefully stay in their driveway! Yep, we're bums!