Surfers Paradise

I forget to mention in yesterday's post after the excitement of seeing a snake, we also saw a huge flock (?) of bats when we were at the bbq. Just flying across the sky.  There were loads of them. They were quite big as well.

Anyway today we checked out of our hostel, along with the 3 other boys we made friends with and we all went our separate ways. At around 12pm we got the bus to Surfers Paradise. It took about 3 hours. I got totally confused with the time as my ipod and phone said two different times. It turns out that whilst the state of New South Wales observes daylight savings, the more northern states don't, so the clocks went back an hour. 

Surfers paradise is pretty different to Byron Bay. For starters it seems a lot bigger. But also it's got big skyscrapers and a lot more people and things going on. It has a pretty awesome skyline that we saw on our bus journey from across the sea but it was too far away from pictures and unfortunately I'd probably have to get a boat out to sea to get a decent picture of it.

When we got to Surfers Paradise and walked 5 minutes to our hostel. We are in a room of four which has no windows and no ventilation. All we have is one fan and the room is boiling hot. Sleeping tonight is going to be horrible. We are sharing the room with a Canadian girl and a Swiss guy called Roger (with a French accent). Poor Roger has hurt his eye from his contact lense so is not feeling that great.

After dumping our bags and taking full advantage of the free laundry, we went for a wander round. Surfers Paradise has like different rivers and little islands so we walked round one little island to see the beach area that said you could swim and then round to the main beach promenade where we found a little market which was cute. We wandered through, trying free samples of some amazing brownies along the way. Lauren bought a $2 bracelet and we stopped and looked at some reptiles a dude was selling photos with. Then we headed back to the hostel. 

While we were out I walked over this bark covered area and I got a pain in my toe that felt like I had a really big thorn stuck in there but it was getting more painful by the second so I stopped and took my sandal off and looked at my toe and couldn't see anything despite it really hurting. I put my shoe back on and the pain got worse. I took it off again and looked in my shoe and saw a massive ant just sitting there. It had obviously bitten me but it was more painful than any bite I have ever experience. I was sure I was going to lose my toe. Lauren was just standing there laughing at me while I was sure I was never going to play football again. I had some bite stuff in my bag so I rubbed that on it and it still didn't help. Eventually, by the time I'm writing this, it has stopped hurting and I still have all my toes. 

After our walk we came back to the hostel and just chilled for about half an hour before heading to an Irish bar that did $10 steak and chips. It was actually pretty good. After we walked along the beach, trying and failing to get some decent photos of the beautiful full moon lighting up the beach. Whilst there we ran into the girl for our room. We chatted for a bit before walking back together to the sauna that is our room.