Ticking the Boxes

Sooooooo,

Loz and I arrived at Coolengatta airport last Saturday night and have had a hectic time
trying to settle down and sort everything out asap. We're pretty much there with everything
now though and for the first time have found ourselves with too much free and time and not
much to fill it with!

We'd planned to catch a local bus to Surfers once we landed but didn't know where or when
to catch it from and I was more concerned about how I was going to carry my 80lbs of baggage.
It's fair to say we're NOT travelling light and everytime we're about to move is accompanied
by a feeling of dread at the pain i'm about to put myself through. In the end We did manage
to find a trolly on the loose and we gladly piled the bags onto it.

After wheeling ourselves around for a while we found the coach depot and a jolly aussie
told us the next bus was in about 11 hours at 7.30am, really helpful! I'm pretty sure he
was wrong but the stop was a 10 minute walk away and I couldn't really be bothered to find
out as he offered to drop us at the hostel for $21...with the weight of the bags on my mind
it was an easy sell for him!

So then we arrived in Surfers and at our hostel, The Sleeping Inn. It wasn't much like a
hostel as we had a privte room but the vibe was cool and i'm looking forward to staying in
them and being more social with the other travellers when i'm backpacking with Michelle.

Our first morning we went straight to the local accommodation place and luckily they had a
suitable flat on the books, we arranged a viewing, liked it and accepted the 3 month lease
from Herman, our new landlord! It's a nice big clean apartment with everything we need and
works out cheaper than the hostel so that's all good. There's even a sauna and jacuzzi to
chill out in :)

Next up was the job hunt, seeing as we're going to be chilling here till December it makes
sense to get some cash and keep busy. We're both starting shifts in a sales job on Sunday
which i'm not reallllly looking forward to but will hopefully bring in good money. To
make things a bit cooler we're also both going to interviews for a surf shop next Thursday,
it'll be good to top up the bank account again, i'm aiming to get it back to what it was
when I left.

Ummm, yeah so that's it really...there's not much going on at the mo! Will write more when
there's more fun things to write about....

Into the Unknown

Yo,

Plans are slowly and surely progressing during the time we've spent here in the suburbs of Sydney, our flight to the Gold Coast is today, Saturday September 5th (we'll try not to miss this one!) and we're ready to embrace the exctingly named Surfers Paradise for 3 months and all it has to offer.

We're booked into a hostel for the first couple of nights as we won't have any long term accomodation but hope to find somewhere cool quickly and then the jobs and routine will follow. I'm also planning to buy a trusty bicycle to carry me and my kitesurfng gear down to the beach whenever I feel like a sesh, that'll be everyday then! Apparently the distances are manageable there and not like the sprawling mass of cityscape that was LA.

So for now it's all about doing some sight-seeing with the Dobrees. Yesterday Mary took Loz and I up to the famous Blue Mountains which are situated a couple of hours drive out of Sydney and are home to The Three Sisters (a rock formation on the edge of the gauge). They're called the Blue Mountains because of all the eucalyptus gum trees in the gauge that give off a blue glow in the light, at least I think that's what Mary said!

Right, time to pack the bag...