I thought we arrived at Surfer's about an hour before we were at the bus depot. But apparently, it was another city that was just attached to Surfer's in one long, long line of coastal high rise development.
Sitting on Surfer's Paradise beach later on, I could see how far the development stretched - basically the length to the distant headland to the south and probably beyond (seeing the dark grey of the mini map in my Oz guide book) to a total of about 35km. It's quite weird, having come from an array of smaller locations where most of the headlands were reserved as national parks.
Even weirder, come 2.30pm, the sun started casting shadows on the beach, making it a little nippy. Which planner thought of putting the hostels and buildings a street away from the beach?? Silly silly.
Having said this, the beach was very cool; a squeaker underfoot with some decent looking waves at some points.
Oliver and I met up with a couple I'd met in Bellingen then Byron - Kevin and Camilla - who had been sold a bar crawl for that night for $15 each (RRP $60?!??!), which would get us into a load of places for free with a free drink at each place and food; sounded like good value!
Having recouped at the hostel (which had an en suite, oo la la. No real door, just what looked like 1/2 a stable door in the middle of the frame to divide the dorm and loo/shower), we headed out to the big lights of the Sunshine Coast capital 10 minutes down the road.
Meeting outside our first destination, a strip club called Showgirls, at 5pm, we started the crawl. But being 5pm - there wasn't really any vibe or any of the Showgirls the club was named after. Taking our free drink, mine a schooner of Carlton, we sat down and commented on how weird a place it is, considering everyone was stone cold sober.
An hour later and a handful of pizza, we moved on to loads (well, 5?) of other places, including a place called Bedroom that was meant to be famous and popular for international DJs to play at, a strictly R&B club (woo) and a bowling alley, where we were going to play a free game! Or we would have, if there were half the people and double the time. "Ah, mate, youse should have pushed in!" According to the organiser. Thanks.
A few clubs, Vodka Sunrises (mmmmn!) and familiar faces later, we went home, via a discount shop that was common all around Oz. The shop played a loop of a guy spouting stuff about how you'll never see prices this low again and stuff, and how they were closing down. All of this was done in a voice that sounded like a suppressed shout, giving him a near desperate edge. Bought a pink frisbee for $2.50, probably on account of recently loosing the Aerobie.
After watching a little bit of Little Britain on the 14" TV in our room, a lot of which isn't really funny anymore to my ears, we turned in.
The next day, after a scrumptious burnt egg on toast with cheese brekkie, with tea, we headed for the beach, body board in (my) hand. The beach was shadow free for 4/5 more hours, so we wanted to make good use of it!
New (very manly) sarong placed down, I scoped out the surf, which had disappeared overnight. Any surf that there was was just dumping on the shore anyway. Bored of just lying there like a corpse when it was too bright to read and I had too much energy, I decided on a walk - informing my comrade that I'd be back in 10. I spied on a map an inlet for boats and stuff a day or so before and spied the adjoining boulder wall in the distance to the north.
2 hours later, I arrived at my destination, having been too determined and proud to give up without getting there. After all, it must only be another 10 mins away, max? The problem of flat beaches is the lack of perspective... it was probably 4km, by the time I got there, without shoes or a T-shirt or money or a phone. Feet hurting, I made it out to the boulder groyne that jutted out into the sea by 100m (I thought it was probably 20m at base camp, hence thinking it was closer, perhaps?), had a look around, at the sea, and made it back.
Why not hitchhike?! I thought, it couldn't be that difficult, and I couldn't be bothered to walk an extra 4km back. Walking over gravel, asphalt and grit, I reached a car park for this area. Walking along what I thought was the main drag back to Surfer's, I started thumbing for a lift. 100m and about 15 cars, plenty of them near empty, later, I came to a fork in the road which veered away from the beach - walk on the softer sand or hold out for a lift with increasingly worn heels. To the beach, I confessed internally, was probably the best way - a half naked, incredibly muscular 6'1" strange guy probably isn't the first person anyone would want in their car.
Getting back with my heels hurting a wee bit, I sat down to Ollie asking where the hell I'd been, he was sick with worry and sent search parties out and everything.
We had a $10 steak that night; its always good to have a 'real' meal every now and then, even though, with extras, it came to $16.50. Still, a whole meal that costs 8 quid ain't bad.
Booking up my Greyhound for the following morning and accommodation in Brisbane, I sat down in front of the big-old rear projection TV (that undoubtedly was THE biggest thing, 5 years ago) to watch the last 5 minutes of Fight Club. Don't think I've ever seen it all! Should do. One for the list.
Surfer's Paradise had a good night life, nice restaurants and stuff, but high-rise, overdeveloped Spain isn't what I came to Oz for! Glad I'd discovered that myself, though.
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