Team Awesome Attractive: Jethro the Gecko

We went to Surfers Paradise after Byron Bay on the day of halloween. The guy that checked us in and gave us our keys turned out to be from Paisley! This time our room at the hostel had its own bathroom and shower rather then having to share comunal ones. Us and the other Oz Experience people that were at surfers were too tiered to do anything for halloween so instead we adventured across the road and had a Mexican meal complete with Sangria! After that we all just headed to our rooms - exhausted. Today our clocks all went back an hour because the people of Queensland dont believe in day light saving because it messes up the farming system, apparently..

The next day stuart and i ventured into town to see what there was. There wasnt much apart from the usual tourist and surfer shops so we went along to the beach but it was so windy that you couldnt lie down without being buffeted by sand. It started to cloud over not much longer after that so it became a pretty uneventful day. I started to get really ill so i climbed into bed early and stuart went down to 'the last resort' which is the hostels little bar area with a few of our fellow travellers.

Second day in Surfers Paradise we had to be out of our rooms by 10am so there was a lot of sitting about before our bus left at 5. It was yet another dim day so no sunbathing at the beach instead we played short tennis and that was about it. Arriving in Brisbane at rush hour time we called the hostel 'Bunk' that we were going to be spending the night at, so they could send out a bus to pick us up, they told us that it could take up to an hour to arrive because of traffic and that it would probably be quicker just taking a train and then walking. So we did. The odd thing was that the name of the place our tickets were for wasnt the name of the train station we were to get off at so without the help of a friendly local we could have most probably ended all the way back in surfers! We successfully got off the train and stuart called the hostel once more, totally forgeting the walking directions to the hostel the second he hung up the phone. So i called again instead and rememebered the street names, which was no use seeing as the street we were supposed to turn up had no street signs! Yet again with the help of some friendly locals (and with no help from the man in the 7/11) we managed to get to the hostel where Adam met us. The hostel seemed a really nice place to stay, a lot cleaner than the others we have stayed at. Although it was an 8 bed share rather than a 4. Each bed had its own little shelf, reading light and power socket which was better than fighting people for phone charging space. We dumped our bags and I headed into bed, still ill, and Stuart went and met Adam to explore the nightlife of Brisbane! Im not sure how it went but he does not recall coming back to the room with a violent outburst of the hiccups (which is extremely annoying for people that are ill iin the bunk above trying to sleep!)

We left about half 5 the next morning to catch our bus to Noosa. It was a lovely morning and we had a nice big coach this time instead of the little mini bus we had had on the first few days. Noosa is a lovely place. Stuart tucked into the expensive hostel fry up while adam, emma and i went to explore the local town, the beach was hardly there. There was only about a few meters of sand before you got to the sea, and the majority of the sand that was there was covered in little children all running about and screaming - not my idea of a nice beach. There was only a few shops, all of which are pretty expensive. Later on in the afternoon stuart and i found a little secluded beach area further up the road where the water was calm and no children in sight, result.

We decided not to join the other 2 and go to the Steve Irwin zoo today and instead went down to the small quiet beach instead where some local teens were jumping off the pier and a man who was fishing had brought along the smallest, cutest little puppy we had seen in a long time! It was friendly and covered us both in sand, i wanted to keep it, stuart thought it was best to give it back. We walked further on from our spot and we saw stuarts favorite kind of dog, a husky, walking through the water. It was odd seeing 2 dogs in such a short space of time because you dont see very many out here. We also decided today that we would spend an extra day in Noosa rather than going to Rainbow beach. We cooked dinner again this evening instead of buying a meal, which was lovely! Too much to finish though. We played ping pong for a while that evening, the ball hardly hit the table, hit about everyrthing else in the room though! After we chilled out and watched NCIS before going back to the room to find that a gecko had taken residence on the ceiling, he was named Jethro, by Stuart.

On wednesday it rained pretty much non stop all day. Had to dig out my rain poncho! We braved the weather and came down the cheaper part of Noosa and went on the internet before our kfc lunch. we headed back up the road after that as stuart and adam decided it would be a good idea to go in the sea in the torrential rain. I went along as the bag carrier and left not too long after, the rain and the wind was too much for me! We all dried off in the room and played some scrabble. We discovered none of us knew words longer than 4 letters long without making them plural. We did some much needed washing of clothes and then packed our bags for leaving the next day. We never had dinner as we were still stuffed from lunch! No one knows where Jethro the gecko has gone.

Which brings us today, once again the sun is shining and we have time to spare before the bus leaves so we have finally got round to updating our week!

and add some photos this time, enjoy.

First day on the bus- leaving Sydney.