Welp. I have let Byron Bay and am alive to tell about it.
All four of us, myself, Kate, Diva, and Laurie, had one last breaky at Aquarius on Monday morning and then were out of town in Sean’s borrowed car by 10am! The drive to the Gold Coast was short and easy, just straight up the Pacific Coast Highway, and I drove the entire way, no dramas… yet. We stopped in at the Coolangatta Tourist Information Center for maps of Gold Coast and Diva put the maps along with her wallet on the roof of the car. I grabbed one of the maps and got back in the drivers seat to study it and Diva got back in behind me a minutes later and we continued on our merry way. The road, no longer the highway, was along the coast and was a little windy and on one of the curves we all heard a loud thump, like something had fallen out of the window. We all said, "What was that?” And then after a few seconds Diva exclaimed, “My Wallet! I left my wallet and the other map on the roof! Liz only took one map!” Thanks for throwing me under the bus Diva! Haha Everyone yelled to stop the car and turn around but we were on a stretch of road that was rock face on one side and ocean on the other, with non-existent shoulders and nowhere to turn around. Luckily, a roundabout was coming up so we did a 360 and then pulled over (as best we could) near the wallet and Kate jumped out to retrieve it and the map (of course the wallet just so happened to fall at one side of a pretty much blind curve in the road). Fortunately, there was a small median to stand on and no one came up behind us. Successful wallet retrieval.
Next we worked our way to Surfers Paradise, found out hostel (The Island Resort), checked in, and dumped our stuff. Unfortunately we were not in the same room, as Kate and I had booked online, so our other 2 roomates in our 4 share were two younger Britons (interests include pop and theme parks).
The rest of the day was spent outlet shopping, starbucksing, and wandering around Surfers. Oh and cooling down in the pool. We were the only ones in there and played Marco Polo and had a few contests. On the way to dinner I ran into Amanda Weinher! It was wild. I had seen her facebook album recently added that showed photos of herself learning to surf. I thought it looked like she could be in Surfers Paradise. Then when we were checking in to the hostel there was a poster for “Learn 2 Surf” and the rashies they wore in the photos looked exactly like the one Amanda had on in her photos on facebook. I mentioned something to Kate about this. Then we saw her in the streets!! It was so crazy. Anyway, she is here doing her Masters in Education, so actually living there. We asked her and her friends what there was to do on a Monday night and they joked 'this is it!' And said they were getting beers and just chilling if we’d like to join. We declined as we were looking for dinner and really wanted to dance. They suggested The Bedroom or Sin City. So we had dinner and then split a 26er of Captain Morgan Black Label between the 4 of us, in less than 90mins. WOOOOOOOO! And headed out!
When we were trying to find The Bedroom we met some guys on the streets that asked us where Avenue was. We had just passed it and they urged us to join them. So we did. There was a live band and it was small and pretty tame. But Kate ran into these two Britons who’d been staying at Aquarius that she knew (Doug and Dan, Doug had been a participant in the infamous Aussie day Meat Pie Eating Competition. He did not win, but he did have the most pies in his hands at the end). They’d been at Sin City and said it was a little boring, nothing to do, but we wanted to dance and so brought them back there with us, and made it worthwhile! We owned that club. I was on fire and danced my face off. We took over one of the platforms and dominated. It was a really awesome night! Kate and I might meet up with Doug and Dan again in Brisbane because they are there the same time as we are. The more the merrier!
The next day we woke up and hit Starbucks again (oh drip coffee I missed you so!) and had some breakfast and wandered around some more. We were all quite hung. Around lunch time we said said Goodbye to Diva and Laurie and they drove back to Byron Bay. We’ll see them both again in Melbourne in about a month hopefully!
Kate and I just lazed about the rest of the day, I went for a run along the beach and we got some groceries for dinner. Some douchebag -who ended up being okay and from Toronto- told me I had too much water in my pasta, thanks buddy, I’m not a dummy. We watched some TV and then went to bed early.
Wednesday morning we hit up Starbucks again and this time came armed with our laptops. I found out my video application for The Best Job in the World had been accepted and was now available for the world to see online! See the post below for the link, oh hell, here it is again! YAY!
The rest of the day was spent getting tickets for this Club Crawl that they advertise and try to sell tickets for on most every street corner. It’s called Plan B, costs $60 and includes pizza and nibblies, and entry and a drink at 5 clubs. On the street they sell it for $60 but we got it through our hostel for $20. We should have known something was a little sketchy about it when they told us it started at 5pm, but we really didn’t have much else to do.
So I went for a walk to the mall and then we got ready for Plan B by using our 2 for 1 drink coupons at the hostel bar (Vegas in Paradise), it was also Happy Hour so we each got two standard spirits for $3.50.
We arrived at the first venue on the Plan B tour around 5:30. We were given a few things upon arrival- a wristband, a sticker that let everyone know if you were single or taken, and a nut if you were a girl, a bolt if you were a boy. The object of this first game was to get “screwed” or in other words find the matching nut and bolts and receive a free drink. I found a match but since we were late 5 other couples had already found their matches and so no more free drinks. Also all the nibblies had been eaten. Then the fun started. The party games of course. Oh, did I mention we were the oldest ones there by about 5 years? Awesome!
So was the pattern for the all 5 clubs. Free drink, try to have fun and dance. Get totally disgusted by the party game. The clubs were empty since we were there so early, but I guess that’s how they make these things work. “Can I get a Hell Yeah?!” “Who’s horny tonight!” Shoot me in the face. Not to mention that everytime they said Plan B over the mic all I could think about was the Canadian morning after pill with the same name. It was like they were sponsors for the evening: go out, get drunk, have unprotected sex with a stranger, and then the next morning since all you can recall is Plan B you go to the chemist and get it and all your problems are solved! YAY!
We ended up making it to the last club only because it’s where we went on Monday night and we’d had a good time. But of course it was full of only 19 year old club crawlers last night. We peaced out and were in bed by 11:30pm. Peace out Surfers Paradise! Well Peace out Surfers earlier today. We didn’t do much today, checked out, had Starbucks, wandered, then took the bus and then train to Brisbane. We’re staying at Kate’s cousin’s house here for the weekend before taking off for New Zealand on Monday!
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