Cowabunga Dude

I went down to the Gold Coast over the weekend with Jeff, Joe & Bianca to learn how to surf on Saturday. I couldn't have asked for better weather as it hovered around 30 all weekend! We left after work on Friday night and headed to Surfers Paradise to the apartment we rented for the weekend. Jeff and I stayed out 'till past 4am on Friday and woke up about 3 hours later to head to our surfing lessons. We were paying the price for it the entire car ride down to Coolangatta - even though it was only a 30 minute commute, it felt much longer.

We had some land based instructions (proper feet position, how to balance yourself, how to jump on the board, etc) for about a half hour before we headed to the ocean to catch some waves. Joe & Jeff stood up on their third try, but it took me a couple extra waves to finally stand up. Once I did though, I had no problems after that. To start out, our instructor pushed us onto the waves so we could learn how to properly stand up. After that, we tried to catch our own waves, which proved to be difficult. Overall, it was an absolute blast learning to surf. We spent the remainder of the Saturday day at the beach catching some rays. We were all pretty exhausted after we got back to our rooms, so Saturday night was pretty uneventful.

On Sunday we headed back to the beach for a couple of hours. The three of us guys made the mistake of not applying any sunscreen and now we're all pretty red. I actually have proof that we stood up via pictures & videos.

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This is my last week of work before I head out for two weeks of holiday before heading back to Illinois, so my post will probably be pretty erratic (not that they're consistent now) from here on out. My itinerary is to spend 6 days at Fraser Island and the southern tip of the Barrier Reef (at Lady Musgrave Island) and then back to Brisbane for two days before I head to Hawaii for five days. I should be able to post some pictures once I get back from the reef.

Surfer's Paradise

*** Just uploaded more pictures from the weekend *** - Tuesday 11/09

On Saturday we went back down to Surfer’s Paradise to do some more jet skiing. Craig’s wife Sherri was up from Melbourne to visit for the weekend and to see the troublemakers that Craig hangs out with. We stopped off at Yatala again for some meat pies for breakfast and the first thing we did in Surfer’s Paradise was to head to the lookout floor of the Q1 Building. The Q1 is the world’s tallest residential tower and the 20th tallest building in the world (and the tallest in Australia). Being 300+ m up in the air provided some amazing views of the coast line and the surrounding mountains.
After the Q1, we became beach bums for a couple of hours - laying around, hitting the volleyball around and playing some cricket. Our appointment for jet skiing was at 2:30, but we showed up about 20 minutes late and didn't get on the skis until 3:30. We were suppose to only be out for 2 hours, but since we were repeat customers, the guides kept us out for 2.5 hours. It was a lot funner this time since most of us were experienced handling these beast of machines. I wiped out once, Joe & Kirstyn wiped out twice, and Craig & Sherri wiped out three times - one time when they weren't even moving! Last time we mainly went in a straight line; this time however we were fish tailing, doing 180's and pretty much acting like idiots - which is why we got tossed off so many times.
On the way home we stopped off at a seafood market to get some fresh prawns, oysters and octopus. We saved the seafood for Sunday night, as we had a Mexican cookout after we got back on Saturday night.
The only downfall from all the goofing around on the SeaDoos is that everyone was supersoar afterwards and everyone is walking funny today. Here are the pictures from the day.

A Day at the Coast of Gold

Yesterday our group went down to the Gold Coast – which is about 40+ minutes south of Brisbane. Along the way we stopped off for breakfast in Yalata to have some meat pies. It might sound disgusting, but they were very tasty. For the first couple of hours at Surfer's Paradise we just hung out on the beach, tossed around the football, and just enjoyed the day off. Oh yeah, we had Wednesday off for a Brisbane public holiday!! Don't be too jealous because I don't get Labor Day off in a couple of weeks. After lunch we headed down to Miami Beach and then just drove around town. Later in the afternoon we went jet skiing in the local bay and it was an absolute blast. I've been before, but never on anything as manly as these Sea-Doos - 1500cc engine, 130 horsepower. Our guides estimated we were probably going 65-70 kph (about 40mph). Other than making the turns, I kept the jet ski at full throttle ... it was an absolute rush. Since Surfer's Paradise is a pretty cheesy, albeit fun place, we decided to do a cheesy dinner and eat at Hooter's. We were able to convince our waitress that it was Apple the cow's birthday, so the waitresses sung Happy Birthday to her. It was a fun day and a great way to finish off these last several days of fun. Now I just can't wait to catch up on some sleep ... enjoy the photos.