Im sitting in the Gold Coast airport waiting for our flight to Malaysia, then to Thailand. The past week has been incredible, and I know for sure that I absolutely have to come back here, maybe even to live for a bit. What a crazy great place! The first few days were a little meh, staying at overly crowded party backpacker hostels but once we got out of those and headed to Brisbane to couch surf, the whole experience changed. Brisbane is a really amazing city. They have these ferries called city cats which are part of the public transit system so you can take them across the river which winds through the city just across the river or down the whole length for the 'backpacker tour of Brisbane' for just a few dollars. We had a really great time riding those around, and checking out the amazing public parks full of rainbow coloured birds and big lizards. The coolest place we went though, was a nature conservation park which also had a koala center with rescued koalas in it! It took 4 bus rides and a train ride for 3 hours each way to go see, but was so worth it. (Especially compared to an entire day of train and bus flowed by 15km walking only to find ourselves hitchhiking in the dark on a freeway on ramp with giant spiders, poisonous frogs, and whatever other dangerous critters we didn't see just feet from us - saving the tour of the outback for when we come back with a car! Eeek!)
Anyway, the koala centre was amazing. They are so cute its ridiculous! And as if seeing the koalas wasn't enough, we walked out into the park after and we found a wallaby couple! Incredibly tame too, everything in the park is protected so they had no fear of humans at all. AND THEN: as I looked closer at the lady wallaby I noticed her pouch looked kind of big, and it started moving. I saw a baby wallaby poke out its little red face - I think it was eating grass or something. The cute and incredible factor was off the charts.
The next day we went with our couch surfing host for a surf lesson! We went to Byron bay. The only place ive ever seen that in more funky than Sedona. We met a lady earlier in the week telling us about the 3 crystal lines that meet in Byron bay and thats why its such a magical place. This for some reason discouraged us from going at first... snark snark... anyway it was an awesome trip, Beautiful waves and I actually stood up on the board once! Unfortunately there is no photo proof but dar and keith (our host and surf instructor) will vouch for me! I even ended up paddling fast enough to catch the wave myself at one point. Woo hop! Hope I don't become too much of a beach bum! But I would love for the next place I live to have a good surfing beach.
So, here we are about to check in for our flight. I put on sunscreen twice yesterday and I am still burnt to a crisp! :( maybe the Thailand snorkeling will have to wait a couple days or I can buy a wet suit instead. We are also both utterly terrified. We have been so babied by first world countries for the past 8 months it is sure to be a shock!
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