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Grace's Adventures!
Hello everyone! I am going mad right now!! I had nearly done all my photos again then I hit the wrong button and all was lost again! These photos are turning out to be a nightmare! So appreciate! I will update you slightly now, which will explain the pics too! If that wasn't annoying enough, all my photos I took when I was traveling up from Sydney to Brisbane with the Oz experience bus got deleted with one wrong press of a button on my camera!!! Lost loads of pics of the people I met and beautiful Barrington Tops and a few other places but luckily I went back to Byron Bay which has to be my one of favourite places in Oz so got plenty of pics from there!
I last left you in Byron Bay, going surfing - well that wasn't very successful as the only boards they had left in my mates hostel were really short ones for proper surfers! So I couldn't get any balance - also it was really slippy so I just slipped off all the time! Also the drag in the water was awful - I could barely stand up let alone walk out into the waves! Still had fun though, and got chatting to my fellow surfers which ended up me getting a lift with 2 of them to drop off my board, and meeting a guy staying in my hostel who I kept bumping into and saying hello! Later on that night in the hostel there was a very entertaining talent show performed by random people staying and working there that are all extremely talented - most of them playing the guitar and singing. The 2 guys on the mic where really funny too (one of them Cockatoo Paul who did the bush walk the day before). There I met a rather zany guy called Rob who grows and sells orchids for a living and we chatted for some time!
The next day I was truly lazy and laid by the pool all day and wrote my travel journal and went for a swim! That's about it! Later on I went to the Buddha bar and watched Cockatoo Paul playing in his one man band! He plays the didgeridoo or sings, whilst he plays the guitar and drums with his feet! It's really funky and he's so funny too, so had a fab night! Met a few girls who sat down at my table and they were really nice and chatted for a bit. After Cockatoo Paul there was a really cool fire show with 2 people twirling round massive fire on the ends of 2 sticks (better than it sounds!) - rather close for comfort at times though!!
The next day I left on the Oz experience bus and met a new crew but only for half a day! Saw some familiar faces again. We first went to Nimbin - a strange little hippie town in the hills! Hash is everywhere in that place - tons of people offered it too us, but we knew what to expect and you don't get hassled. They have a hemp embassy, a museum and a handful of art galleries, organic food shops and cafes. The museum was very bizarre - more of an arty statement than anything else - very hard to explain! The hemp embassy had a 10 metre joint hung up from the ceiling and sold bongs etc, and also had lots of info on the benefits of hash and why it should be legalized etc. They were playing a video showing raids from the police and because I was reading and watching (as I always do) the guy who runs the place came up and started ranting for ages - wasn't sure if I would get away! It's not actually legal there but for some reason it carries on fairly openly, and the police don't seem very successful in doing much about it - strange!! After that we headed for the Gold Coast and we crossed the border to Queensland where our clocks went back an hour which was strange!! The Gold Coast was worse than I thought it would be - all the buildings were really modern, and there was just high rise after high rise, and lots of palm trees. I think it tries to be glamourous but has all the charm (tack) of a typical Spanish resort such as Benidorm! (The pic above is of the Gold Coast). Me and Ellie (girl from Lulworth) got picked up by our courtesy hostel bus which was rather a long way out of the main area called Surfers Paradise, then I went into the town. After spending a little bit of time wandering around the tacky or overpriced shopping precinct and getting cold on the beach (the high rises create shade everywhere!) I was left wondering why I bothered stopping in Surfers at all! I was told I probably wouldn't like it but I had to see for myself!! I met some nice people from UK on my way back in the hostel bus and we spent the evening chatting so that was nice.
The next day I had no idea what I was going to do till 3pm when the bus was going to take me to Brisbane but it poured it down the whole time until just before I left so I and lots of other people watched a few movies! Then when our bus picked us up we all went zorbing! It was so cool - you have to dive into a big rubber ball (me and 2 other girls) that has a bit of water in it and then they launch you down a hill! So much fun! You're like a hamster in a ball and you just slide around everywhere - I loved it! Then off to Brisy - it looked like any other city really as we drove though. I lugged all my stuff up to my hostel because as usual I had found a bargain one that they didn't drop off at! It seemed fairly nice to start with - the room was spacious with only 3 beds, and only 2 of us in there, but then I started to notice the not so clean bathroom, the cockroaches in the kitchen cupboards, as well as one in my room!! Was no way near as bad as the ones in Melbourne though!
The next day I faffed about, planning for Andy's arrival and doing bits and pieces. I met some nice people the night before - only chatted to them briefly but I ended up playing drinking games with them sat on the balcony in the hostel then going out in Brunswick St. just down the road - the main party street in the city! Had a great night, and only bought one drink!
The next day dragged on and on because it was that night that Andy arrived! I went down to the river and walked along, found a cool board walk, walked over the river to South Bank Parkland, walked about, looked round some markets, found a really cool bush-tucker restaurant for us to eat in the following night, and walked back to the hostel! Must have walked about 6 miles I think! I realised then that I had probably made a really good choice in deciding to make Brisbane my next stop for work, as it's another rather happening city, the parks and river area are really beautiful and well kept and modern and it has a really good feel about it. That night, at 3am I got a taxi to the airport and waited for what seemed like forever for Andy to arrive and at about 4.15am he appeared!! So good to see each other, and quite strange as it had been 6 months!!
We didn't do much in the first few days - went out into the city each day and got leaflets, bought things and tried to plan our trip for the next 4 weeks! We did go to Roma street parkland though which was really nice - lots of water features. We were planning to go to the Botanic gardens one day but it suddenly poured it down whilst we were out! Andy couldn't believe the weather (was also fairly cloudy in the first week) as he just thought it would be boiling hot and sunny! We also had a brilliant meal out in this bush-tucker restaurant called 'Tukka', which had all different bush meats like possum and emu and roos and all the sauces were made with wild berries and flavourings etc. it was amazing! There is only one other one in oz and they actually (apparently) source everything from the rainforest! It was rather pricey and you didn't actually get that much of it but it was worth it for the experience! We had a really nice walk back through some of the parklands and saw frogs, bats and possums - Andy's first experience of oz wildlife! Earlier that day we had seen some water dragons too. The next night we ate in a Chinese/Vietnamese place, which was much more in our price range and actually too much food! They were really good in there and we went back several times!
Well that's a start, will update with more sometime soon!
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