We drove south down to Surfer’s Paradise which we were really excited about since we wanted to go surfing and figured where could there possibly be a better place to surf than Surfer’s Paradise? I mean the name says it all. I’ve heard it’s a developed area so I was expecting the rows of tall hotels and apartment buildings along the beach. We found a parking spot, which was always a challenge with our bus since we took up two parking spaces and then looked out into the ocean to see the surfers catching waves. When we did we couldn’t see any. On a closer look we saw about two but they were lying in the ocean not catching waves. The waves were choppy and uneven and hardly suitable for surfing. I’m no surfing expert by any means but I do know when I wouldn’t go surfing.

I asked the lady at the booth by the beach who was renting surfboards whether this was typical weather, thinking that she’d tell me this was way out of the ordinary and has been the worst day she’s ever seen, I mean this was Surfer’s Paradise.

The most stereotypical pic from Surfer's Paradise

“It’s pretty much always like this,” she said. “It’s usually good around 6AM.” Most surf beaches are good at 6AM, how is this possibly a surfer’s paradise, I thought. Basically it’s a name they gave to a not so great beach so tourists would visit and they do. Most tourists go to the Gold Coast and that includes Australians who don’t usually sight see their own country but they’ll swarm to the gold coast because that’s where Australia’s four theme parks are such as Sea World and Warner Brothers Movie World. I met an Aussie who was jealous of the quantity of theme parks we have in the states because they have a severe deficiency of amusement parks. Instead they have a crappy fair in cities like Melbourne and Sydney called Luna Park. They have no more than 5 mediocre rides and charge about as much as a 6 Flags ticket in the USA for an unlimited day pass. He told me he wants to go to the US to do a tour of theme parks which I thought sounded incredibly fun.

We did not go to any of the parks because we’ve been to many more larger, better and cheaper parks so we weren’t going to waste our time and money. We did however go shopping for rash shirts because we figured eventually we’ll go surfing and then we’ll need them because what do two armature surfers, who can hardly catch a wave and never stand up need? A rash shirt obviously. One store was having a two for one sale so even though we weren’t ecstatic with the design, we figured we really didn’t need the most expensive coolest rash shirts and any would do. So for 20 bucks a piece we got a shirt each which was a good deal but we have not used them yet (3 months later) so we have not gotten our value for money.

Instead of surfing since it was incredibly windy we flew a kite on the beach. I had picked up a kite at one of the campsites for 2 dollars, which Hendrik made fun of me for but he had never flown a kite before which I found strange so he particularly loved it and let the childhood fantasy fulfil itself. What we saw more than surfers were kite surfers and the activity looked really fun but I probably wouldn’t have the muscles for it. I would have loved to try it. So maybe the Aussies in their habit just shortened the name of the town from Kite Surfer’s Paradise to Surfer’s Paradise

Brisbane is a nice city but I felt it tried to copy other cities instead of having its own thing. For instance it has a replica of the London Eye right along the river which also cost an exorbitant amount to ride so if I didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg to see London, I was definitely not going to ride the “Brisbane Eye.” As opposed to London there was no line whatsoever to ride the as it claims “largest Ferris wheel in the Southern Hemisphere.”

Also around the Brisbane River is an area that very much resembles Darling Harbour, which was not comparable but it felt like Brisbane was having an identity crisis.

We also visited the parliament because Hendrik is into government buildings, as for me after this trip I’ve had enough of government buildings and seeing the red senate and the green house.

Brisbane is definitely trying to be a nice city and a tourist destination, but the problem is there just isn’t that much to do so the one day was plenty of time to see it.

We spent the day at the zoo, and unknowingly it was father’s day in Australia so it was jam packed which was a bit annoying but at least we got a free muffin on entry. I haven’t visited every zoo in Australia, but I think this one is probably the best. I thought that the Australian zoo would be one of the worst because I heard they were going out of business, but they probably aren’t since they are expanding. There is a lot to do and see and the grounds are tidy and the animal cages are spacious and clean. The animal information sessions were actually informative and entertaining, as opposed to many I’ve seen in other animal parks. This one is definitely in another league compared to the Sydney zoo which was a major disappointment because the whole zoo seemed so unkempt.

I was able to feed an elephant a piece of banana, which was fun since I’ve never fed an elephant before, and of course we went to the famous crocoseum for the croc show. It was cheesy but still entertaining because the animals were so well trained. It was definitely the best flying bird show I ever saw and the crocks were neat since I’ve never seen the animal in action in real life before. The snakes were a bit dull since snakes don’t really do much.

There were lots of iguanas wondering free around the zoo like common pigeons and an area where people could pet and feed kangaroos and wallabies which is always fun. I definitely recommend going to this zoo, and if you only do one zoo in AU this should be it.

Me in Australia Zoo

Holding a mini croc

The crocosseum

Then we drove to Brisbane and got situated in a campsite and took the bus to town to have a drink in a pub. It was nice being back in a city where anything I wanted was available.

The next morning we were off to Noosa where there was a festival going on so there was no parking anywhere near town, but we were able to find parking at the beach so we went boogie boarding. It looked like a cute town when we drove through it, and we wished we had more time to spend there since it looked like there is some good surfing, but we were worried about falling behind schedule, and we had to go further south the same day.
We made our way down to Beerwah, which is close to Brisbane and the home to the Australia Zoo. I had wanted to visit the zoo because I had heard so much about it after Steve Irwin’s passing.