Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

Morning in Surfers Paradise 5th September 2004 in Surfers Paradise, Australia


I woke up at 5:35am this morning after a nightmare. Normally I only dream about what I am doing at work but this dream was about not trying hard enough in High School. It's weird; I tend to get these dreams when I'm in a comfortable situation in my life. I used to get them a lot when I first moved in Exeter. I would wake up feeling extremely relieved to be out of school and waking up in a nice warm and comfy room in England. The dream might translate into something about feeling guilty about not doing anything strenuous at this particular point, just enjoying myself and that life is supposed to be about working as hard as possible.

I found school to be the most dangerous point of my entire life, far more dangerous than any city I've been to in America, Europe, Asia or the Middle East. They force you into rooms full of aggressive criminals with few options for recourse. You can live in a large city with a high crime rate such as London because unless you connected with shady types you tend to not get involved in anything and life can be quite peaceful in a city of chaos. In school, the shady types don't have to look far to find you. God forbid you are the target of any violent activity; you'll need to either give up your education to get away from it or become "stuck". I count myself lucky to have graduated from high school after seeing people I went to school with locked up for attempted murder or stuck in $8 an hour jobs living with their parents.

I wasn't to bothered about being up so early, it gave me a chance to get an early start on the day before I flew down to Sydney. I got to watch the sunrise and walk around a peaceful and friendly Surfers Paradise. There were even people who would say G'day to me as I walked past. I walked along the beach where I felt a deep spiritual feeling as they waves moved in and out and the most relaxed people in the world jogged past me. I couldn't believe how good I felt and this was 6:30am on Monday morning!

Around 10am I caught a cab to the Gold Coast Airport. My driver was Turkish, spoke almost no English but insisted on explaining every detail of his job to me throughout the cab ride. I was so happy to get out of that car at the end of the journey.

My flight was delayed by two hours so I spent a lot of time reading my lonely planet guides. At one point I felt compelled to see as much as I could. I thought about going up to Whitsunday Islands when I got back to Brisbane but looking at my limited schedule it looked out of reach. I even considered popping over to New Zealand for a few days. I realised to properly explore and enjoy this part of the world; you need to have a lot of time to do it and a van to explore every town and beach along the way.


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