Gold Coast : Day 3 - It Is Surfer's Paradise!

We woke up and made fried instant noodles. Delicious! Then we fried sunny side up eggs for each one of us. Enough to spare for half a day, we hoped. We planned to have lunch outside since we had too many things to do today. Where else? The the east of Australia!

After took our bath, we went down to the basement. Today, hubby drove. AGAINNNN AS USUAL, I WAS THE MAP READER. BRAVO! HAHAHA! From Surfer's Paradise, we headed to Coolangatta. Eh, back to the airport? For what? To pick up another group member who was left behind when we bought the ticket! Hahaha! So we picked Zam and headed east, hoping to see the Captain Cook Memorial. We heard that there was one beautiful lighthouse that you shouldn't be missed. When we reached the Kirra beach, there was no signboard at all. I asked hubby to stop the car and I hopped down to ask one local couple who just got back from sun tanning the beach (the girl wore two piece ok!).

“G’day…sorry, are you local?”

“Yeah…”

“How to get to Captain Cook Memorial…blablabla…?” They gave me a "?" face.

Then they boyfriend started to voice out that the place was actually on the other side of the hill. He pointed to one gazebo on top of the hill and told us to find it there, same as what stated in our tour cookbook. So I went back to the car and repeated the same thing. The rest was laughing coz Cawan took a picture of me talking to the couple, it must be because that two piece girl! Hahaha!

We turned at one corner and saw one big statue on top of the hill. It was actually near to the place where we stopped just now! Haha! But when we got nearer, it just one old log! Hahaha! Darn! But it didn't bother us at all as the scenery was so beautiful along the beach. We saw people surfing here and there like no one business! Where the was sea, the was surfers. Even under the bridge!

Then we saw one signboard of Rainbow Bay, Point Danger! Yes! We drove up the hill and shouted, OMG!!! THE PLACE WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL! WE FELT LIKE IN HEAVEN! SO BLUEEEEEEEE AND CLEAR! But, where's the Memorial? We quickly parked and walked towards the Volunteer Marine Rescue, Point Danger. In there, there was one guard who was on duty. We snapped few pictures at one high statue that pointed to 4 directions of east, west, north and south.

Then we walked further up. There was one remembrance walk of World War II. We looked down and again, we shouted,

"OMG! BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLLL!!!” 

I KID YOU NOT! SUPER NICE AN BEAUTIFUL! I even felt to jump off the cliff! But I didn't dare to do so. Haha! I must have hit the rocks before I got into the sea! Then we looked to the right,

“WOW! SO MANY PEOPLE SURFING!!!” 

It was Duranbah beach. The most popular place to surf in Australia. The people from up here looked like army of ants! TOO MANY! ALONG THE BEACH! We had to step onto the surf-board-bench-shaped to look, that we acted to be a surfer who are surfing. Hahaha!

We looked to the left, there was one track to the lower side of the hill. Still, we saw many people surfing. Meor, Zam and Mona went down first while the rest, walked half way and stopped. We decided to go down by car. Haha! At this moment, I was so shocked to see Na's eyes as both were swollen! She allergic to panadol and she took two just now! Pity her, but she said it wasn't too bad to endure...just itchy! Lucky she got shades to cover it up!

So we drove down the hill and parked in front of apartments. It was amazing to see these apartments that located exactly in front of the beach. Suddenly we saw the event that being announced via TV last few days, the Quicksilver and Roxy Pro World Surfing Competition!!! Woohoo! Along the way we saw banners and fliers. We passed by one van that full of surfing boards. These people teach people how to surf and some of them were Balinese! The Aussie guy was waxing the boards while the Balinese girls just sat there asking people to rent them.

Further up, we saw more and more people laid on the beach for sun tanning. Some were surfing, regardless of their body size. Hahaha! We walked straight to the even and there were tents and stage down there. There was also one big board that put up contestant names and schedules. In between the tents, we walked towards the beach where we saw two ladies wore thongs! Perghhhh! We snapped pictures, who didn't!

Then we took more beach pictures, playing by the water. We didn't want to get wet since we were not prepared for that. At this moment, many surfers were in the middle of practicing coz whoever won this title, considered the best coz the place was called Snapper Rocks (ya, full of rocks!)

Zam later came and joined us and he showed us his new pair of Quicksilver flip flop! Fuiyooo! He said it was darn cheap so the rest quickly went up and walked into the event tents. Inside the tents, we saw all latest editions, for instance the Snapper Rocks t-shirt, 9 times World Champion, Kelly Slater's surfing short, Roxy wetsuit and etc. OMG! I really wanted to get one! Then one of the staff asked hubby and I,

“Are you guys on honeymooooon?”

We answered “Nooooooo…hahaha! Why?”

“Owh…your t-shirts are soooo niceeeee!” 

We both Hubby looked at each other...and looked at our t-shirts. OOOOOO HAHAHAHA! We forgot that we wore the couple t-shirts! Hubby wore LO, while I wore VE, that made it LOVE! Hahaha! Guess what? They didn't have this in Australia! We had it every where in M'sia! And out of nowhere, hubby came to me and showed his new t-shirt! Aaaaaaaaa! He bought that blue color Snapper Rocks t-shirt! While me? Got nothing! Zzzzz...

Hubby went out from the shop with happy face. Fine! I will make sure I shop till drop at Surfer's Paradise! While walking towards the car, we saw Kevin Slater's life size board and started to take picture with him. Haha! Hubby even covered Kevin's face and replaced it with his face, just to get Kevin's body! So funny! We then gathered and walked to the car, but we couldn't find Meor! Where the hell was he, we didn't know. So we drove uphill and looked for him.

When we reached there, Zam went down and looked for Meor. From inside of the car, we saw a signboard of “Captain Cook Memorial”. Laaaaaaaaa it was actually the place where we saw the east, west, north, south directions just now! Hmph! But where's the lighthouse? We waited for quite a long time for Meor and Zam, who silently went to the memorial and snapped pictures! They even went into the souvenir shop! Dang! Lucky there wasn't anything interesting there.

We then continued our journey to Tweed Heads. The purpose of going here was to see the Aboriginal Cultural Center. We got lost twice and went into housing areas, but at the end we found the signboard of Minjungbal Museum in one small jungle.
 

“Is it this one?”

As per direction, Minjungbal Aboriginal Cultural Center IS ACTUALLY at Tweed Heads South. But we weren't sure whether this is the one or not. Even more weird, no one came to that place, so clearly it wasn't a place of interest for tourist. Anyhow, we parked and went in. There was one wooden house with Minjungbal Museum board. From afar, we saw one fat lady, who looked like an Aussie aborigin. Looking at the hair, skin color, her dress (dress???) we believed that she IS an aborigin.
 

So we walked straight to them and confirmed, she's an Aussie aborigin! She had this Fiji look in modern way of life. She greeted us and we just smiled. We zoomed in using our camera and saw,

“HUH??? AUD15???”

Just to enter the Museum. Not worth it. So we just snapped pictures outside the place and zoomed whatever inside it. What we saw were their handicrafts, paintings, and some aboriginal items. Since we didn't meet any PURE face of aborigin people (painted face), we decided to go off.

Not long after that, we headed down towards the highway. We took Pacific Highway and this time, we saw no beaches along the way. We passed by one tunnel, beautiful green hills, until we reached Byron Bay exit. We then headed to Ewingsdale Road and reached its town. There were lots of shops, boutiques, surf outlets, shopping fair, and so on. We drove further up the hill and at the end of the road,
 

“HUIYOOOOOOO!!! SO BEAUTIFULLLLLLLL!!!"

YUP, IT WAS TOTALLY FAR BETTER THAN THE LIGHTHOUSE AT TANJUNG TUAN, NEGERI SEMBILAN! This one was far bigger, whiter, and located at the end of the cliff! Along the cliff, there were railings and place to sit. There were toilets and eating places as well. We straight away took pictures as we couldn't bear it no more. The water was purely blue, the sky was purely clear, the wave was amazingly strong, the rock was amazingly huge, and the cliff, speechless! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! We can feel the air, clean and fresh! And guess what, that kind of place, we can still see some surfers surfing! Crazy!

There were lots of people up here, so we went down the lighthouse. We had to walked down the track and got exhausted when we reached there! Suddenly,

“Eeeeoooonnnnngggggggggg”

One 1945 jet fighter flew over us! OMG! Please don't release any bombs nowwww! Hahaha! Scary ok! Then we quickly went down and snapped more pictures like there was no tomorrow! Lucky we used digital! If we still use film, I bet we had tones of film in our bags!

We found that there was a way to go down the hill. The was a small pathway, beautiful and well-kept, with railing for visitors safety. Both on the left and right sides were oceans and at the end of the pathway was a cape. And there was a house too, wow, must be expensive! There were surfers surfing and hell yeah, they were so brave to surf near the rocks! We walked further down and stopped at one bench. We looked at each other and started to jump around and snap pictures! Hahaha!

We set the tripod, counted one two three and jumped! We jumped over and over again till we got a very nice group picture. We conquered the place so other visitors had no chance to stop by at that area. Hahaha! And the best part was, the place that we conquered is THE MOST EASTERLY POINT IN THE AUSTRALIAN MAINLAND! WOOOHOOO! (You can see the tip on the map, that was where we were!)

The we walked up the hill back to the lighthouse. OMG! That was exhausting! But snapping pictures along the pathway made us forgot what tiring felt like. We stopped by at the lighthouse since it was too sunny and hot. We then walked back to the car and in the car, suddenly Cawan told us that he snapped one picture of dolphins!!! OMG! Why didn't you tell usssssssssssssss! He told that he didn't quite sure what was it since he just saw a group of black color thingy but since it was moving, he knew that it was dolphin! He said about 20 dolphins ok!

On the way back from the cliff, we saw more and more beaches. We finally stopped at one beach and went down for swimming! We paid the parking fee and walked towards the beach, put on the sunblock, and splashhhhhhhhh we dive in the sea! The water was cold! The wave was strong! But not as strong as Surfer's Paradise. All of us swam and no one got left out. We used the underwater camera and snapped few pictures. But the quality wasn't that good since it was using film instead of memory card. Hahaha! I still can remember how fun we chased those fishes! Cute!

Until we got tired, we went back to the beach. We snapped few pictures including some sexy locals! Hahaha! The good thing about this place, the sand was white and clean. I believe locals don't picnic here, or even they are, they will definitely keep the area clean. We then took a shower but the funny part, we had to hold the lever! Or else, the water will stop! Hahaha! We got changed our clothes in the car and continued our journey, for lunch.

We headed back to the small town just now and saw fish and chips restaurant. But unfortunately, they sell bacon too. While walking along the shops, hubby finally bought one garlic bread, enough for two as it was really BIG! Then we headed back to the car and we suddenly noticed that Meor, again, missing!!! OMG! We made one round turn and looked for him. Zam again went off and we told him to meet us at the parking lot, regardless he met Meor or not. Haihhhh! Lucky we found him!

When everyone was ready, we went back to Surfer's Paradise, using the same highway. This time, Cawan drove. Everyone was sleepy and already slept but I still needed, to read the map. We stopped at Pacific Shopping Fair and saw Wax Museum and Dracula House from far. We didn't went in and straight headed to the mall. We looked for food court and looked for any seafood resto. All sell bacon except for Ariel Seafood. So here we were, eating fish and chips, AGAIN! HAHAHA! Na's eyes still swollen. Next to us, there was a group of local kids who without manners, took Meor's chair when he left to find food. But Meor came back and took back the chair and we scolded them in Bahasa! Hahaha! Stupid! They didn't understand what we were saying, and it was darn funny!

After dinner, we split and shopped. We agreed to meet back at the parking area around 9pm. Nothing much to buy. Hubby and I then saw one press conf for Quicksilver sponsored surfers. There were 4 guys and 4 gals at the desk for autograph session. They distributed free caps and people queue like mad! We then went into sex shop, party shop, brand outlets, and went back to the parking lot at 9pm. This time, Na and Cawan weren't there! They got stranded at one perfume shop and they shopped like a mad cow! Crazy cheap!

When everyone was already there, we moved on to Surfer’s Paradise Boulevard. We wanted to see HRC. There was one extreme park that opened at night, and offered bungee jumping and some extreme rides. We then walked towards the HRC but then too tired to continue. So we stopped at Condom Kingdom, who praised our couple-T and told us how sweet we were, wearing the same t-shirts. Hehehe! We waited for the rest near the extreme park. OMG! They shopped like hell! Magnets, koala bear, postcards, hahaha!

We then went back to the apartment and cooked instant noodles. We took bath and slept. To recap, Byron Bay was pretty awesome, I can't lie, what we see in the internet, is what you get in the real life. IT IS BEAUTIFUL!

---> Click here for Day 3 photos.

Kiki Back To Vege!

Dah 2 hari Kiki tak brapa nak makan...pagi tadi, dia muntah kat lantai bilik dia (air kuning berbuih)...tatau nape. So dari pagi sampai petang dia memerap, asik nak tido sebelah/atas I je. Kalau teruk, ingat esok nak beli ubat kat klinik (if bawak, kompem Kiki tak nak sebab dia tak suka gi klinik).

Hubby pun kesian kat dia, petang tadi keluar kat laman rumah, dia kutip beberapa rumput, bawak masuk rumah. Before that rupanya dia dah try kasi kat Kiki daun kucai (baru beli kat kedai tadi), tapi lamaaaaa je Kiki nak terima. Tapi bila kasi rumput, dia terusssss bangun! Memang dia tau bau rumput! So I capai je sampul surat atas meja, hubby letak rumput atas tu, dia terus bau-bau and makan! Habis tau!

Then I plak kuar, kutip lagi beberapa keping. This time besar skit. Kasi makan lagi. Siap hubby suapkan. Tak lama lepas tu, dia start uwekkkk uwekkkkkk muntah! Haaaaa puas la tu! Dapat muntah! (Kalau tidak, korang tau dia makan apa? Dia kunyah penyapu! Sebab penyapu tu kan hampas pokok gak kan...haiiiii!) Seb baik sempat tadah! So dia muntah atas sampul surat tu jugak. Then lama skit dia datang tido kat I balik. Tak baik lagi la tu.

Tapi malam ni dia dah start rancak balik. Lari sana sini. Hubby bawak masuk lagi 2-3 keping rumput, Kiki siap lompat-lompat nak capai rumput tu! Haha! Kelakar...dah sihat la tu...

"Dah la ayangggggg jangan kasi dahhhhh kang dia muntah lagiiiiii!" (hubby kuar rumah gi amik lagi rumput, habis Kiki makan!)

Sejak I tak buang kotak mineral water ni, dia suka main pondok-pondok plak...dia buat cam rumah dia...memula kotak ni mengadap atas, dia dok lompat masuk and main nyorok-nyorok...lama-lama terbalik, terus jadi jadi rumah dia...haha!


P/S : Hubby takmo support Earth Hour...dok komplen je :( tapi last-last dia tutup gak la lampu dapur and lampu tangga. Tapi lampu hall still terbukak. Deb lalu depan umah, call I, sound sebab tak support Earth Hour! "IT WASN'T ME MY DEARRRRRR, ASK MY HUBBYYYYYY! HAHAHA!"

Gold Coast : Day 2 - Certified Tower of Terror!

At Gold Coast, day started at 5am. It was as shiney as 7am in M'sia. We woke up and I cooked scrambled eggs (ya, I'm the house chef). We ate it with bread. We looked out the balcony, we saw beach! SOOOO REFRESHING! Wave sound? Don't have to mention. We can hear it from our apartment. It was good to see it from the top! So we discussed not to take shower and straight away dipped ourselves in the ocean! Hahaha! We brought towels and goggles along, walked down the apartment through the garage. (Goggles? Hahaha! Expectation was high at this moment!) With surfer's attire, we walked out from the apartment.

Once we reached the basement, we saw one garbage lorry in the middle of collecting garbage. The lorry was quite special as the bar came from the back, ran on top of the lorry head, and pick up the trunk. Not like what we have in M'sia, where the bar is at the back, and when the garbage falls down, no one notice it! Hahaha! Then we walked towards the beach for about 5 minutes. The good thing along Gold Coast beaches is, every inter-houses or buildings, got access to the beach. But not for cars ok. And certain access got shower and its free! WOW! A good way of educating people to not bringing sands on the road huh? We then reached the beach and took pictures. The beach was awesome! Long and wide! SO BEAUTIFUL! We can even see the curve of the beach towards the Surfer's Paradise town!

“Let's run!” KECEBUSHHHH! We ran into the water!

“OMGODDDDDDD! IT'S COLDDDDDDDDD!” HAHAHA!! Yup, the water was cold! The wave was strong! At last, we felt the salty Gold Coast's beach!

There were lots of people swimming and surfing. ALONG THE BEACH! Regardless how fat they are, they know how to swim and surf! So no question asked! To see them in bikinis or sweatsuit, young or old, wasn't an issue at all! (Yup, Most of Aussies are fat and not so pretty...BUT, some of them were really beautiful and handsome!) While swimming, we can feel the strong wave, pushing us to the sand. It looked normal but it was nasty actually. At first we tried to fight the wave by walking backwards but it wasn't a good idea as it pushed us even harder. Hahaha! Lucky the beach was quite shallow. Until we can see ourselves far away from the sand, we stopped. The far we went, the weaker the wave.

So we continued swimming a bit far from the beach and we found one trick on how to fight the waves. Whenever the waves came, we dive underneath it! So the force not as strong as on the water! And if you were lucky enough, you could see fishes as well! (Please pray not to see sharks!) The water was darn clear! And fishes played around your feet, just like that! (Hmm...we thought of caught few and fried them hehehe!) But believe me, you can never catch them! Everyone had a good swim except for Mona. We tried so much posed including jumping, laying on the beach and what not. Anything! Hahaha! Then we saw one beach patrol car in red and yellow color headed to us. He parked right in front of us and went out from the car. He shouted to us but we can't barely hear what he was trying to tell us. But we quickly understood that something was not right, we sensed DANGER!

Without any hesitation, we straight away got on the beach. In our mind, nothing else other than sharks! The beach patrol then planted a sign “Dangerous. Do not swim. Please swim between the flags.” Oooo...it wasn't shark...it was the current. Of all the places, the place that we swam was the most dangerous? Hahaha! We looked around, not far from our place, people still enjoying their swimming. Since we had to walk further up just to "swim between the flags", we decided to go back. On the way back, all guys took of their shirts, imitating the locals. One thing that differed them were their tummies. Hahaha!

We thought of going up straight to the room. But hell notttttt! We looked around, there was no management, so we quickly sneaked into the swimming pool and jumped in! We squeezed ourselves in the small pool and can't even do breaststroke or butterfly or freestyle! Hahaha! The we started to do funny things like hold our breath underwater, who got best pose, who better in doing hand stand, rhythmic swimming, and many more! Hahaha! Until we can't stop trembling, then only we went back to our room. We took bath and got ready to go to DREAMWORLD! And today, Cawan drove the car, but still, I was the map reader (from the back seat hahaha!)

Since yesterday we used the same highway, we had no issue finding it. We drove through the Gold Coast Highway, took Pacific Midway, and used the same direction to the Movieworld (it was the same road to Brisbane.) It was easy to locate Dreamworld as it just further up from Movieworld. Along the way, we snapped few photos of Aussie lorries and we weren't sure why Meor and Zam loved them very much. They were kind of nice, some just like what we seen in Transformers. And the most funny part, they had their own choice of car number. We saw few like Dolce, Filmer, Hitman and PukII hahaha! Most outstanding, Surfer. Nice car!

When we reached at Dreamworld, we parked our car at the parking area. We saw one Bentley with plate no. IT GURU! Hahaha! Nice huh? There was one helicopter flying around and flew just right above us. Wow! How much to ride it? Nevermind, we went in first. As usual, we took group pictures at the entrance. Next to this place, there was WhiteWaterWorld. We can see roller coasters from outside, big tubes with many loops! It looked amazing! But, we passed the water thingy. That "high" pole that we can see from the highway was more "extreme" to try! So we went in!

As expected, we quickly spotted the "high" pole. It was Tower of Terror. Using the same pole, there was another ride called Giant Drop. From afar, we can clearly heard people screaming, and the coaster, it was like jet taking off! So loud! We sat down for a while and looked how it works.

“OMG! That IS SCARY! But can we try?!”

“Let's go!”

Hell no, we walked around first. In the middle, there was one round of water fountain, which surrounded by colorful shops. Exactly fulfill the needs of deriving a theme park. From this area, we can see another big thrill ride, Wipeout. It was like sitting on the seat and it shakes you left and right and make a mess with your hair. Hahaha! We should try it...later. Haha! Then we went to see Mona's boyfriend, from Nickelodeon Central, guess who?

"SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!! SPONGBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!”

Hahaha...we managed to watch the show which actually for kids. There was a pirate, stupid but pretty assistants, and we felt exactly like underwater with flying bubbles around us. So beautiful! And when they played the song, every kids including us, stood up, sang and danced. But too bad, Mr. Squid and Mr.Crab weren't there to join Spongebob and Patrick. The show ended with pairs of daddy and kid, changing costume. Well, at lease, Mona satisfied! Haha!

While walking in that area, one staff brought one cub. It was sooo cute and rolled over the places. There was a ride in cave but it was mainly for kids. Then we took picture at Log Ride but since it used water and we did try it at Sunway Lagoon, we skipped it. We continued walking to the Tiger Island, where we saw one bigggggggg tiger statue at the entrance. When we went in, there was one big tiger sleeping under the tree. Then the staff brought out one big white tiger and it played in a pond, along with another yellow tiger that played nearby the waterfall. It was quite scary seeing the staff walking side by side with that big tiger. Eeeeiiiii!

I“Tower of Terror!” It was the time for us to try!

Haaaaaa…once we entered the tower, there was one big red eyes skull! So you have to walk through its mouth to get to the ride. This time, hubby chose to join! But not Mona. She took all our bags and cameras and wait at the seating outside. Not so many queued and we saw one door at the upper level. The scene in this tower was exactly like shaft mines. Dark and gloomy. While queuing, we started to curse ourselves. Only God knows how scared we were! The sound of the coaster taking off, OMG! We were an inch away of backing off but we really wanted to try this ride! The feeling was a bit different when we rode Superman Escape in Movieworld. So we stayed.

There were 2 doors, 4 person per door. The operator opened the steel bar and we went in. Once we sat, we started to say prayer. Hahaha! The shoulder bar then went down, tightened! At this very moment, we had no idea where to hold as the operator didn't allow us to hold any part of the coaster. And the leg room, was really small!

ZUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPP!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! 

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!! 

The first straight line was SUPER FAST! IT WENT UP 90 DEGREES! IT STOPPED FOR A SECOND AND IT FELL BACKWARD!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

HAHAHA! But this time, we let lose our hands and screamed yeahhhhhhhhhh! We've made it! And you know what? The speed was the same as F1 speed! So now we knew what does it feel, DARN FAST AND FURIOUS! And for your info, Tower of Terror is one of the 6 Big Thrills at Dreamworld. So we have another 5 to go! Woohoo!

We thought of riding The Giant Drop (the same track at different side of Tower of Terror) BUT WE DIDN'T DARE TO TRY! It was a 120m free fall, just like Batman Spaceshot in Movieworld, but this one higher! I bet the scenery from up there was marvelous but no, thanks! Hahaha! I wouldn't want to scare myself and leave my lung up there. Hehe!

Then we walked to the right side of the theme park. At this side, there was World of Wildlife. Like other theme park, we were given a map for guide. There was rail crossing but we didn't have chance to try one.

“EH KANGAROOOOOOOOO!!!”

We headed straight to the kangaroos, but not the close, afraid of being kicked. Haha! But we saw few visitors rubbed them gently and those kangaroos were very well behaved. So we got closed to them and squatted. We tried to touch its head first, and we got good response. So we touched its body, again, it didn't move or do anything. It didn't look mad at all. So we quickly sat next to it, laid next to it, took pictures as much as we can! Once in my life time, I had kangaroos sat before me! Same to the rest, though they still contemplated to touch the kangaroos, they still tried. I looked back, saw one kangaroo dug a hole, I thought it wanted to poopoo, but it squeezed its body into the hole and slept! Hahaha! It must be hot in here.

Not far from us, lots of kangaroos slept under the trees. We had so much fun snapping their photos. Well, first timer, what do you expect. Then we continued our journey to the koala area. Again, for the first time, I was overjoyed to see koalas in front of my eyes! Even there were only two of them! They were so cute!!! But to bad they didn't faced us. And not moving at all. Just sat on the branch, looked back. If they faced us, they just scratching here and there, so still, we can't capture good photos of them. We looked at the counter, to cuddle the koala, they charged AUD15 per photo. So we passed it and just took photos from far.

Enuff with koala that wouldn't want to pose nicely, we walked further up. There was one wooden bridge with waterfall and jungle at the surrounding. There was peacocks, swans, black parrot, and ducks too. We snapped few pictures and walked further up. I started to jump around when I saw tazmanian devil! Cute! But it just slept all day long. Next to it, we saw pademelon, that looked like wallaby. There was one black swan that arrogantly flapped its wings nearby. Hahaha! I don't get it lah! Almost all flying animals had tags on their feet. Easy to be recognized, maybe. In between of the huts, we saw more sleeping koalas on the branches. I wondered how they didn't easily fall huh? Haha!

While laughing at those koalas, hubby's batteries fell down in the cage! OMG! How do we take them back??? We started to think fast and got one idea. We wanted to jump into the cage, but we afraid that people might see us doing so. Since Cawan was the tallest among all, he bended his body, we hold his back, he stretched his hand and tried to take the batteries! And he got it! Thanks Cawan! We owe you! Then we quickly went into the nocturnal animals areas but hell no, we didn't see anything inside there! But we did saw few animals like snakes, rats, and squirrels. So we didn't bother to check the rest.

Then we continued to the other side of the park. We felt hungry so we looked at the map, there was one "halal" resto called Billabong Restaurant. We walked at the swamp side and it was huge and beautiful. I bet there were crocodiles in there! Hahaha! We reached the resto and looked at the buffet price. Too expensive, so we skipped it. We walked and continued snapping pictures, and passed by the crocodiles area. There were two types of crocs in Australia, and amazingly, one of it is the salt water crocs! OMG! Surfer's Paradise beach started to ring a bell...what if we met one there??? Can you imagine that? NOOOOOO! We quickly walked away from that place and skipped the croc show as well.

There was one food stall nearby. We bought salad, chocs and drinks. Nice! We stayed for a while and walked back to the car. This time we passed by Worlds of Classics where we tried to find something that cool and not scary rides. Meanwhile, we snapped lots and lots of pictures and we did have fun like hell! Then we saw antique/vintage cars in 50's era. 4 persons per car, so we hopped in to cars. The car moved on its rail, so we just need to pedal the brake and fuel. We laughed and took many pictures as we made fun of each others. And everyone was taking photos so no one was ready and said cheese! Haha!

When we turned back, we passed by the kangaroo area but this time, we saw red kangaroos! They were huge and masculine! No fur, exactly like siamese cat! Haha! There were dingos too (desert dogs). We continued walking and took more photos until we reached the Log Ride back. At this point, everyone was pointing to each other whether we should ride it or not. At the end, only hubby and Meor jumped in. We waited next to the gate and Cawan pointed to one spot where we can later take hubby and Meor's picture, when the log dived into the water. About 20 minutes of waiting, we finally saw them at the top of the Log Ride, waiting to dive in. Kecebushhhhhh!!! Hahahaha! The water splashed on their face and we all laughed. When they passed us by, I saw the ride seat was made of cushion! Wah! Better than what we have in Sunway Lagoon!

Another big thrill that we tried was Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster. We looked back the root to Tower of Terror and lucky there weren't so many people queued there. Even the Arabian women in "jubah" and "hijab" rode the ride ok! Hahaha! The ride was actually in two forms of motorcycle, either motorcycle with sidecar, or single 500cc. This time, there was waist bar at the back. So this bar will forced you to the front and locked you in.

Red! Yellow! Green!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! EEEEOOOOONNNNGGGG!!! LAJUNYERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

OMG! THE CORNER? IT WAS REAL! YOUR HEAD FELT SUCKED DOWN! UP! DOWN! LEFT! RIGHT! THEN WE REACHED THE END! HAHAHA! THAT WAS HELL OF FUN!

Once we stepped down, we took our bags and shoes and walked ahead to the Thunder River Rapids. The place was called Wild Wild West. Got jail and place where they tortured the prisoners. The was a hole at the side, like prisoner dug it to escape from the jail. So we played good cop bad cop there and snapped lots of photos there. Hubby and I even drastically posed as lovers who got separated for years. Hahaha! We then tried the Thunder River Rapids since the queue wasn't too long. Enough for 6 of us, we hopped into a floating buoy. All bags were kept in the middle of the buoy and the buoy flown down the stream. The water came from above, side, with splashed of here and there, and we played who got the most wet. And guess who? Na and Cawan! Hahaha! She even had water in her pants! And the winner were hubby and I. Hehe!

We stepped down an saw Na and Cawan's butt still wet. In front of the Gold Rush, there was one big fan. So both of them stuck their butts to get them dried. Haha! Not long after, we started to get hungry again. We looked for foodcourt and still had the same menu, ceaser salad and fish & chips. While eating, there was one heron (large bird) walked by. Haha! From there, we walked to the Wipeout, fastest vertical ride in the world, not moving. They wanted a full seats of 20, then only they will run it. Stupid huh? So we had to skip the ride. We then headed to Flow Rider and saw two staffs, young boy and girl, demonstrating their surfing skills. Awesome! Looked easy! But I bet, we can never do that! Haha! Then we looked at the right,

“THE CLAW!!!” 

“LET'S TRY!!!” 

“Eh where's the rest?” Na, Mona and Cawan weren't there.

So hubby, Meor and I queued for it. This Claw was ring shaped and swing 360 degrees and reached zero gravity as high as 9-storey building! Haaaaaaaaaa! Crazy huh? We sat around the ring, with dangling feet. We looked down and saw the floor started to open and the Claw SPINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNED!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

DIZZYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

I EVEN LIFTED UP MY FEET, AFRAID TO GET SMASHED ON THE FLOOR! HAHAHA! SCARY OK! BUT ACTUALLY THE CLAW'S FLOOR WAS ACTUALLY LOWER THAN WHAT WE'VE EXPECTED. THE BEST PART WAS WHEN WE WERE UPSIDE DOWN! I WAS WEARING SKIRT OK! LUCKY I WORE TIGHTS UNDERNEATH IT! HAHAHA!

While we on top, Cawan snapped our photos and each of our faces looked so terrible and scared! Hahaha! Once we got down, we asked them where did they go. Mona actually wanted to take pictures with her hero, Spongebob. She was so happy coz she can hug and kiss him. And there was baby Rugrats too! Even the pirate knew them as they were the only two who wore scarf. We thought of trying Cyclone, but it was already late. Cyclone is the tallest high speed gravity roller coaster in Southern Hemisphere! Don't play-play ha! Then we walked to the exit and along the way we stopped by at certain places to snap some pictures, including putting hubby's head in shark's mouth that turned to be hubby having shark's head. Hahaha! We actually did ask few locals to snap our group pictures but all of them turned out to be shaky and blurry. Hmph! At the end, Meor went to the car and grabbed our tripod, came back to us, and voila, we had nice group pictures.

We got into our car and headed to Surfer's Paradise. Along the way we stopped at one Indian restaurant that offered "halal" curry. But only hubby and Meor bought it, while the rest planned to cook. We later went to Woolworths and bought few needed things. We also stopped at the famous night market at Surfer's Paradise. We wanted to get fridge magnets and what not. We had to make 3 rounds at Surfer's Paradise Boulevard in order to find free parking which we couldn't find one. So we just parked somewhere around there and walked.

“WHAT??? ONLY THIS???” Unbelievably dissatisfied!

The night market was more to artsy thingy. No fridge magnets at all! We can't even take any photos there! There was one time where this one local women chased me for taking her booth photo! Hahaha! Why so difficult? Next time, just put "No Picture", that's all she needs to do! I did not buy anything but Na bought one scented koala. We both then bought one leathery dried fruit and it tasted good! Anyhow I didn't manage to finish it. We ended the night by taking pictures at the Surfer's Paradise landmark but the pictures turned out to be not so great as too many people crossing by.

We got home and cooked. As usual, I was the cook and this time we cooked macaroni soup. We put almost everything in there, even the black pepper that Na took from don't no where. We also bought chili sauce and guess what, Aussie didn't eat chili sauce, they just eat tomato sauce. Not a fan of spicy I guess. After we took bath, we watched TV and discussed about tomorrow. Ciao!

---> Click here for Day 2 photos.