Byron Bay to Surfer's Paradise
		Driving up the East Coast of Australia you will most likely spend more than a few hours on Pacific Highway Number One.  It's a long hot stretch of road that follows the line of the coast about 60km inland.  It's just pure highway, lined with warning signs about hitting kangaroos and koalas.  It's huge bananas and crayfish.  It's petrol stations and fast food stops.  It's The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Califorinication, over and over because that's the only tape we have to put in the tape deck.  It's the loud rush of wind past your ear because the windows always have to be open.  (The AC doesn't work and it's HOT!!!)  But most of all it's travelling.  Moving from one place to the next, observing not disturbing.  It's a journey. It's life. We got into Surfer's Paradise on Friday, October 29th and checked into The Surfer's Paradise Backpackers Hostel.  Overall it was a nice place.  It had a nice kitchen, a mini-tennis court, a mini-basketball court and a mini-pool.  We took advantage of all those things and had some fun. Unfortunately our room was less than desired.  It totally stunk like urine.  Obviously someone took a leak in the room and we couldn't get the smell out --- nasty.  Plus, they "twinned out" (turned a dorm room into a double) so we didn't get our own kitchen, couch and TV like other doubles got. But it worked for a few days. We stayed in the pee room two nights.  The first night we played it pretty mellow and just went to a movie.  During the day on Saturday we mostly hung out at the beach, checked out the town, played a little tennis and basketball, and talked to a surfer dude and got the full skinny on the surfing scene up the East Coast.  He was a real interesting fellow. Saturday night we rolled.  Surfer's Paradise is a party town through and through.  It reminded us a lot of Miami Beach.  We went to Melba's and met a big time Australian Indy Race Car driver and his American wife whose diamond necklace looked like it cost around $500,000.  (Lisa says it was fake.) There were also a few other Americans who were introduced to us who had moved there from the U.S. and seem to just love living there. The jet set, the glitteratti, and surfers -- that's Surfer's Paradise. The night took a commical turn when we had to ditch this overly nice Aussie who was freaking us out by asking us to hold his cell phone and showing us pictures of his family from 20 years ago as well as a work ID proving that he had a job.  We were dogging and weaving through a disco scene.  Masses of scantly clad girating bodies, flashing strobe lights and waves of loud dance music.  When we finally escaped through a back emergency exit we flagged down a rik-shaw and got a ride back to the hostel -- what a night! Sunday, the 1st of October, we braved our hangovers and headed towards Sunshine Beach.