Happy Easter everyone!

At last, some respite from the daily grind. I’ve been very caught up in work as well as plotting my departure from the company….I can now reveal that I have been offered a new job with a different company (yay me!) and will shortly be leaving. Boo Hoo. Oh well…that is life. I’ve been spending weekends preparing for interviews and thankfully, that all paid off. It’s slightly sad though, I’ve been with this company for 3 years and would have really loved to stayed on other than the fact that there are no opportunities left anymore for me to grow in the direction that I want to – for those that know where I work at, you would totally see my point. Ah, well. I’m just glad to be going back in the same direction.

So yes, exciting times ahead !

Anyway, back to Australia!

Day 7 was basically just a lie-on-the-beach-and-relax day. We were due to fly out of Gold Coast in the evening, and wanted to spend the one day just relaxing around beaches and doing some shopping. After spending the morning lazing on the beautiful beach-pool, we quickly showered and checked out at 11. It was unfortunate that the hotel did not have a proper shower which we could’ve taken a shower before leaving for our flight, otherwise I would had happily lazed there until 4 in the afternoon.

I must say, this has gotta be the most AMAZING pool ever. Sigh. I wanted to stay there as long as I could, seeing that we were checking into a hostel that night in Sydney, this was no suprise, really. Oh well. Paradise can’t last forever.

We popped over to Australia Fair, the local mall, as I wanted to purchase some sandwiches ect to snack on during our flight that evening. It was heaving – possibly because it was 36 degrees outside. After a few dark and moody days, I can’t believe that it’s bright and sunny on the day that I was due to leave! Grrr. We had lunch in the food court (nothing exciting at all) and then beach-hopped our way to the airport. It was a 9 mile drive, in which we must’ve stopped 5 times at the numerous beaches down the Pacific Motorway towards the airport. We stopped at another mall when it got too hot for some bubble tea…nom nom.

#’;It was just really relaxing driving down the motorway and stopping at random neighbourhood beaches
all the way along. The further you get away from Surfers Paradise, the quieter it is (obviously). I love getting into local beaches….and would throughly recommend renting a car to anyone – it’s easy enough down the Pacific Motorway as it goes all the way from the airport.

We arrived in Sydney around 9-ish local time…and really couldn’t decide if we want to take the shuttle train (around $15 per person) or a taxi – because it really don’t cost much more with taxis. A rail replacement bus was in place, and seeing that it only went to Central instead of Town Hall, we settled on a taxi instead. at AU39, it realy wasn’t much more expensive than the rail shuttle.

We headed towards Base Sydney – the hostel that came as a package of my free Sydney trip. NOW, the adventure REALLY starts! Unfortunately, it was Saturday night, and we were two very tired over-the-hill travellers. Saturday night in a hostel is like Saturday night in a college dorm….drunken, loud, smelly and ugly. The package came with a private room for two, so at least I didn’t get drunken people collapsing into my bed in the middle of the night. It was a sparsely furnished room ( a bunk with a queen sized bed at the bottom) and a small two-drawer side table. And that was it. No hangers, no rails, no nothing. There is a hole in the wall where ventilation from outside was piped in; so at least we have some air. However, because it was a hot sweltering summer, it wasn’t very cool.

I went to sleep in semi-shock – which could only be expected as I had been spending time in a 5 star hotel. I’m glad to report however, that it was really on Fridays and Saturdays that the hostel is riotious – all the other days in the week it was quite pleasant really for a hostel. There is the occasional stinky and stoned teenager, but overall it was fairly sane.

You might also be interested in these

• Awesome Australia – Day 4 Melbourne & Gold Coast
• Would you believe it even if I told you?
• gold
• Sydney, anyone?
• Awesome Tour of Sydney-progress so far…