The day before Halloween (FYI: trick-or-treating is not a big a deal in Australia), was a day of highs and lows on the monetary front. First, the negative. After calling home that morning to talk with my brother and try and get his visit sorted out for the following week, I became embroiled in a discussion with my all-knowing mother who informed me that I MUST go to the doctor’s office and get my full-body-consuming bites looked at. Seeing as how I was still doped up from the three anti-histamines mixed with booze that I had consumed the night before, I gave in to her demands from the other side of the world. I had become quite proud of my streak of almost 365 days without seeing a doctor, but alas it was to come to an end. Leeanna escorted me to the doctor’s office, where I paid $65 for a two minute visit with the doc, who told me what I already knew, that they were probably bug bites. What a fucking genius! He cut me three prescriptions; one cream, one steroid, and one itch relief pill, and what do you know my pockets where another $75 lighter. The moral of the story kids, don’t sleep with bugs in your bed. Hot women and strippers; okay. Bed bugs; no dice. With my day already costing me a bit more than I had anticipated, I caught a break when Leeanna and I went to go mini-putting at King Tutt’s Putt Putt. Luckily for me, the guy at the counter wasn’t too swift (at least as far as mini-putt men go) and he decided to give me change from the $50 bill that I never handed to him. Therefore, we got a free round of mini-putt and about $30 handed to us for a nice tidy profit of $50. If only all mini-putt courses did this, they wouldn’t struggle so much for patronage! In the end, Leeanna and I ended up tying the first game with me naturally winning the second in a landslide, because let’s face it I am an animal with a putter in my hand and I really wasn’t trying the first game. To celebrate my victory, Leeanna and I headed back to the hotel, where I forced her to make me a BBQ by the pool and think about all that she did wrong on the mini-putt course!
Sunday morning I woke up very early, which had become a common theme for me, as the bug bites all over my body made it extremely difficult to sleep for long periods of time. With Leeanna still in a coma, I decided to take a very long beach walk and to book an early Sunday morning haircut. Upon my return home, I was still feeling extra spry and for the first time in my life (yes, life) I tried to make bacon and eggs. Needless to say it was not a total disaster, but if someone even tried to charge me $2 for that in a restaurant I would tell them to shove the burnt bacon up their ass. Next up on the busy day’s agenda was to head over to the suburb of Southport by bus and try and find a discount shoe factory store I had read about. I guess somehow, I just figured that we would stumble across it, but alas it was not to meant to be. Eventually Leeanna convinced me to give up and we ended up walking around forever trying to find a bus to take us back to the part of town we were slightly more familiar with. Luckily, the bus route back happened to take us right by a huge mall (although sadly it did not have a discount shoe factory store), where I proceeded to significantly update my wardrobe for the first time in almost a year. I ended up spending a few hundred dollars on three shirts, two pairs of shorts, a pair of shoes, some books, and my personal favourite, a Buffalo Sabres windbreaker that was on special for $10. I somehow doubt that Sabres merchandise sells too well Down Under, or anywhere, Buffalo included for that matter. This was not to be the end of our shopping though, as that evening we went out to all the Asian-run souvenir shops to purchase some last minute shit, I mean souvenirs, for Leeanna to take home. Still not feeling we had spent enough money for one Halloween, I treated Leeanna to one last “classy” dinner in Australia at some restaurant called Sage. I must say the food was excellent and all that jazz, but if there is one thing I will not miss at all about Australia, it’s the poor customer service you generally receive in restaurants. More than anything, I think this can be put down to the fact that it is not a gratuity-based business like it is in Canada, and this in turn causes waiters to not really give a fuck! Aside from the dodgy service, it was a tremendous meal, which we unfortunately had to walk off when we arrived back at our resort to discover that the power had gone out! Nothing settles a steak and beer quite like a solid stair climb at 11:00pm!
The next morning with our power fully restored and me not being allowed to cook, I went on a mission to try and sort our income tax and superannuation (pension) situation. From talking to other backpackers, we believed we would be entitled to a large chunk of our taxes back, which sounded pretty enticing as we had both been taxed close to $4500 each in the last fifteen weeks. We made our way over to an accountants where were promptly informed by some moron that we were not entitled to a refund because we were non-residents and would in fact owe money. I knew that he was wrong, as we were residents for tax purposes, but I could not be bothered arguing, so I just gathered up my stuff and out we went. Unfortunately, this led us to have to contact taxback.com, a website that specializes in backpacker tax refunds but also charges ridiculously high rates. Seeing as how we were running out of time though before Leeanna left the country, we had no option and set about making things happen. In the end, we learned that we would both be getting refunds estimated in the range of $3500, but that was after taxback.com took their fees which I believe were close to $400 each for the two of us! In addition to paying the highest ever rate for a tax return, I believe I also set a record for the most money spent in internet cafes in one day, with $20 being spread over three locations trying to figure out our taxes and my brother’s travel plans as he was due to arrive from Canada later in the week. Now that our taxes were all sorted, we could relax and that night we went to where Brent always goes to let off steam, the casino. Apparently, Jupiter’s Casino was the place to be on a Monday night, as the place was insanely busy. The money wheel was six people deep all around and you could all but forget about finding a decently priced blackjack table! Now I’ve been to Las Vegas numerous times, and believe me, the casinos there don’t look anything like this on a Monday. After having a few drinks at the bar, Leeanna and I ended up playing a bit of digital blackjack and roulette before packing it in for the night after we lost all our early profits but were still even for the night. One other random side note from the evening was the copious amount of Asian people consuming loads of alcohol. As someone who frequents casinos, I know that there are tons of Asians in casinos all over the world, but for the most part they are not large drinkers. On the Gold Coast, it seemed I had entered another world. Totally random fact, I know, and one hundred percent useless to the forward movement of this blog, but I somehow felt it necessary to mention.
Since we were starting to run out of time on the Gold Coast, Tuesday morning was time for us to do the one pre-requisite thing you must do when you visit the area; hit up the amusement parks. Leeanna and I decided to purchase a Season’s Pass for $100 which would give us unlimited access to three theme parks for a year, although we really only needed it for the next three days! It was well worth it though, as admission to the park we were going to that day, Warner Brother’s Movie World, had a price tag of $70 for one day entry! Movie World can best be described as a much smaller version of Canada’s Wonderland, although it definitely had better props and characters throughout the park with Looney Tunes being the overriding theme. Most of the rides were named after movies, such as the Lethal Weapon roller coaster, Batman Sling Shot, Wild West Falls, and our personal favourite, the Superman roller coaster. Superman was actually quite unique in that unlike any other roller coaster I had ever been on, it shots you at the beginning of the ride and you accelerate up a super-steep hill, instead of the slow descent you usually encounter on roller coasters. There were also some good shows that we saw during the day, including one featuring bunch of Hollywood stunt car drivers doing some crazy tricks in their cars and jumping through fire and shit like that. We also caught the “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” 4-D show, and for anyone wondering what the fourth “D” is, well it’s pretty much just water being shot and misted at you from the back of the seat in front of you. Either way, it was a great day, although the two highlights for me had nothing to do with rides. The first was early in the day when I discovered frozen, chocolate covered bananas. Simply put: delicious. The second, which was funny for everyone but me occurred when I was standing in line to get my Season’s Pass picture taken and a giant, and believe me I mean giant, spider fell out of an overhead vent and landed in my hair! At first I thought my hair was brushing up against a plant or something behind me, but I quickly noticed a giant arachnid scurrying down my body. This led me to jump around like a mad man and let out a loud series of expletives in front of a large number of young children. Let’s just say that if my mother was there she would have threatened me with the bar of soap like it was 1990 all over again. After my traumatic experience with the spider that day, it was nice to finally see my bites going down a bit that night, although the girlfriend didn’t seem to notice, as her Kardashian addiction was now in full overdrive and she could not get enough Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney. Okay, maybe I watch it too!
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