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Ruthie's Travels
We visited a travel agent in Manly because we were concious that time was running out for Kate's holiday and that we still wanted to do as much as we could of the gold coast (east coast) in the time left. They booked all our travel itinery for the next 10 days and the next morning we were on a flight to an airport near Byron Bay, the first stop on our travels.
The weather was warmer up there and noticably more humid as we stepped off the plane. Byron Bay was a great wee town, with a slightly aged hippy feel to it. We stayed at a hostel that had a private path across a rail track straight on to the very large beautiful beach. The town itself was clearly very popular with Australian tourists and had relaxed holiday feel. We spent a couple of days chilling out there before getting a coach up to Surfers Paradise.
'Surfers' as Aussies tend to call it was an interesting place. Dispite vairous negitive noises from travel agents Kate and i decided we would visit it as this was one of the few locations we had heard about before arriving in Australia. Upon arrival it became apparent that there was a large asian presence. Large skyscrapers were compacted into a dense area with a very long beach which seemed strange given that we had just driven across miles of open land with just a scattering of buildings along the way.
Wondering around the streets i noticed alot of arcades/souvenier shops/ Crazy golf courses/ fast food joints and body beautiful, image consious people. We went out that night together dispite the fact our hostel was doing a pub crawl with a few other hostels in Surfers. Over dinner we heard them comming down the main street shouting "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!" at the top of their lungs and we cringed slightly.
The next day we Kayaked from the main land to a nearby Island. We walked across and came out on a beautiful white sand beach which looked back onto the tall glass highrises of Surfers in the distance. We could have gone to one of the numerous Theme parks in the area but we didn't have time. Surfers, in reflection, reminded me alot of Florida, people call it the Miami of Australia.
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