Beginning of the Gold Coast

Where do I even start? This has been the most amazing few weeks! Well to begin, we took a flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast early wednesday (the 17th of April) morning and arrived in Surfers Paradise by 9am. Not realizing we couldn't check in until 2pm, we took our hangovers straight to the beach to sleep them off. Unfortunately we didn't catch the best weather while we were there. Still warm weather but lots of rain and wind so the beach was quite a sand storm at the time. After checking into our place, we were so relieved because we had such a great setup! We had a full kitchen, a bed, a pull out couch, and even another little loveseat. For 5 people - it was perfect! We were able to get the grocery shopping out of the way and then quickly walked down the beach to meet some friends that road tripped up the coast and were camping nearby. Here's a picture of part of the group! Yeahh me and a lot of boys I suppose.

After a few attempts to go to the beach and getting covered in sand, we realized to cut back the day drinking and looked into buying passes for the Seaworld and waterpark that was nearby! We went to seaworld and it was amazing! I have never seen penguins before, which must have been the most entertaining for sure. This little guy just kept running in little circles in and out of the water.

Then there were some pelicans. And of course a sealion show which was phenomenal! 

Then there was of course the underground aquarium view which was really really cool! 

Of course the last one looks like Dori for those of you familiar with finding nemo! :) Then we used the same passes to go to a huge water park the next day. These rides were unlike any waterpark I've ever been to. The one behind us in this picture was so crazy. They gave you a back protector since you ride on your back the whole way down. You step into this capsule that feels like a personal space shuttle that counts you down. The platform drops from under you and you soar straight down and gain enough momentum to soar all the way around and down. I was only able to do it once. The boys took a second go at it.