A golden coast and paradise for surfers (and for us)...

IT'S HOT!!
I got sunburnt. Gee. After 8 weeks of being so incredibly careful and using sunscreen, I fell asleep on the beach in Gold Coast, on Broadbeach actually. The sun is so strong in Australia, you wouldn't believe it if you haven't felt it. And there's a hole in the ozon layer as well (which causes it we suppose :)). Even the cars!! get sunburnt here. The coating in some models and producers is simply not made for this amount of UV radiation... Unfortunately it rained a fair bit. According to David we have to come back again to see it in the nice season. But we think you haven't really experienced a place when you haven't see it on the "bad" side. The good thing about rain is you can sit inside do stuff and enjoy it :))

THINKING, THINKING, THINKING
Guess we were, we are still, pretty tired. Mar received a mail from her work, asking about our plans, and it messes with our heads. We don't want to think about it. We don't feel like we need to. But We have to. It's just that this urge of taking up responsibility for my life, for our life, is not there. At least not in the sense of "house-tree-animal" as we say in Dutch. (Better said "house-car-kids?") three and a half months to go. More in the sense of that we need to take care of our physical and -very important- mental health. More than 25% of our journey left, but it weighs on our shoulders.

A FULLY PACKED PROGRAM AND GOOD FOOD. WHAT MORE?
In Gold Coast, we stayed with David and Nadia, a lovely couple, that took us in like family. Together we surfed, fished and searched for glowworms in Springbrook. We watched bats in a cave underneath a waterfall. We drove up all the way to Border Ranges National Park to get a glimpse of the mountains through the clouds, after we were refused to climb Mt. Warning due to landslidesand and wandered about in the Gondwanan Rainforrest which was really nice - especially in the rain (as it is called rainforrest...). We ate scones, fresh pasta with pesto, tofu choco mousse, raw chocolate cake and buckwheat pancakes. It was lovely, and it was relaxing.

We had a bit of time to work on our health. Nadia took us to hot yoga (bikram). Quite an experience! it was almost like doing a marathon in Thailand. It was really good, a shame we didn't get to do it more often! Together we also wanted to go to their fitness studio on a 5-day-introduction voucher. But although it's never stated anywhere, apparently it is just for locals. Hmpf. They made us wait, for 45 minutes, as the receptionist could not sign us in. This dragonlady was really rude, and we finally left after the manager told us we can join one day for 25 dollar. Incredible, we've never seen anything like it. "Rules are rules".  But it would be nice if you would actually explain or write down the rules. Thus, we went to play tennis; worked out to be more fun!

Funny actually (or not) that this "gym" culture lives so much here. There is sooooo many fat people. (no offense meant). And still everyone drives a (massive) car, (or 2) and people won't walk a few hundred meters. They grow oversize, and compensate much of their lack of exercise by going to the gym. Get a bike we say!
Talk about obesity, brings us to Wet'n'Wild waterpark. Gold Coast is home to some of the biggest fun parks; we only managed to go to Wet'n'wild, with a lot of waterslides. Somehow not as big as we hoped for, but big enough to make us sick. Super long slides, a gigantic funnel, a rocket launch loop where the floor drops away and tunnels in the dark. Only one word for it: awesome! But also here the amount of obese people is reay high, shockingly also affecting many (all??) children. Somehow, it seems pretty Americanised. Supersize refills, chocolate restaurants.... villas near the palmtrees an d houses that are difficult to rent out if they only have 1 carport... A lady called it " living the Australian Dream".

HIPPIEVILLE
We took a tour to Byron Bay to go surfing with the hippies. The amount of dope used here is almost as high as in Amsterdam or in Laos or Cambodia :). It's quite a chilled atmosphere and a lovely beach. It was nice to just sit in a cafe and watch the people (hippies and campers) walk by. The air smelling of grass, the sunglassed dudes carrying surfboards around. ("dude" and "mate" are by the way words you can also use for a woman :S) Thanks to David we had a surfboard we could borrow. Our wave catching became better every time, although wave surfing is still not as satisfying as kite surfing. Maybe we are just not patient enough? :)

SAILING THE TASMAN SEA
In Brisbane we got to know Ashley, who is passionate about sailing as well. He invited us to join him for a sail on his Young 88 around Green Island, out of the Manly harbour. It was amazing, refreshing and simply gorgeous. Sailing the Tasman Sea had been the only thing missing from our point of view; a real treat that we could go!!! We had a nice breeze, lovely sun, managed to get the spinnaker up and sailed right back in before the real thick rain came down. And the best: dolphins right before the boat, less than 10 meters away. It was an incredible sight, and we are thankful for yet another special moment.

Another week zoomed by with the speed of light; next flight Gold Coast to Auckland with Virgin Airlines 23 kg allowance, pfew. That made it a bit lighter. We were nervous, in order to get into New Zealand you actually need proof of onward travel; which we obviously did not have. We'd see how things work out......:)