The meaning of 'September Break'

Well hello there. So this is my blog entry to explain both my trips to Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, and also my absolute stupidity wherein I lost ownership of my camera. However, before you get too excited, I will have to start at the beginning with the purpose of my travelling in September. This, it seems, has befuddled many of my friends that can't seem to contemplate why I get to go on holidays when they have to go back to University ( I do work in a school as well, remember). Well, because the school system over in the southern hemisphere parallels the seasons they experience here, just like our system changes with the seasons in the north, their breaks and holidays are at different times. So as it is our winter back home in December, downunder we start feeling the 40 degree weather. Likewise with our summer in Canada, Australians start feeling the 20 degree weather ( Haha, well I guess it gets as low as 10 at night here). This would then explain to all my rather confused friends why I went on a 'spring break' in september, because it technically is their spring. I hope now everything is clear...
My September holidays started off with a 13 hour wait in an airport smaller than Vic Intl. Our (Marco's and myself's) only free ride into Townsville left at 5:00 am, whereas our flight out of Townsville to Brisbane departed at 8:30pm. This left Marco and myself plenty of time to catch up on sleep from our early waking, to play cards, to glance at my newly purchased SI calendar, and to play pool in a cafe across from the departures area. After several thoughts about doing a mid-day hike to the coast out of sheer boredom ( An 1hr hump with our heavily laden bags ), we received a call from a friend that was due in Townsville at any moment and who thought we should go out for lunch (with still 8 hrs before boarding). This afternoon snack ended up turning into a random search for long lost friends, and eventually a barbie with complete strangers who were friends of a friend. It was great times because our vacation attitude had taken over early, and the drinking commenced at the first sign of beer. Herr Marco had a few too many, and after checking in at the flight desk ( a time we barely made because of traffic back to the 'port ) yelled out to me while I was walking in front of him " WE NEED MORE BEERS". Take-off was an interesting event, because everything was already moving fast for me before we'd begun to taxi...
We landed in Brisbane as slightly more sober men, at around 10:00 pm. Somehow Marco and I had managed to wrestle our way into a friend's sisters' place for the night since our hostel booking had gone awry... and that night had led me to meet a nice guy who dives for the Australian navy and who would later come up to visit us for the Charters Towers races (Oct 21st). The next couple days we stayed in Brisbane and I had come to love the city that was big, but also very accomodating and easy to get around in. If you ever come to find yourself trapped in the city, well just say any one of these three words: roma, central, or southbank. This will solve any of your travelling woes, since they are all very well located train stations which can take you anywhere from Steve Irwin's "Australia Zoo", to the Sunshine coast or Gold coast. Number one favorite spot: Southbank. It's an oasis trapped in the middle of the stone and glass, with picture perfect sand pools and flowering arches draped over the curving sidewalks. It's quite an architectually orgasmic place, and can be found just over the Brisbane River bridge with great views of the skyscrapers. The bitch of it all is that I'd taken some great amazing pictures of this city, all very well planned and posed for... but I'd lost the friggen thing. Oh well, I'll get to that later, just writing this all out reminds me of some really beautiful places. Damn.
Regrettably, we had to leave Brisbane. The rest of the coast was calling my name and a couple of days was already a frivolous investment in my 2 week timeline, so we'd packed up and hitched the train south with two additional strays. Well they might see that as insulting, so in all fairness we'd actually met up with two clean and healthy German ladies whom we met while on orientation in Melbourne. Annika and Janina were both acquantances in school prior to their GAP year who became friends after discovering they were heading in the same direction, and so they also thought they would travel together for the September period break. It was only after talking with Marco for a little while over the internet that they decided that the three of them would see the same places, and of course I joined in slightly later as the out-of-place and anglophonic Canadian. Yes, a lot of German was spoken over the break, and no, I didn't understand a word.
But we were 'auf der strasse' (on the road) and bound for the Gold coast's Surfers Paradise with hope of seeing the sun that had successfully evaded us in Brisbane. Unfortunately, it turned out that the bastard hid from us in Surfers too. In actuality we'd surfed and lounged on the moderately populated beaches for around 3 days and did manage to see our share of sun, but not long enough to save us from a near-disastrous surfing lesson in a lightning storm... oh well, it was cold, dark and wet but the ever-popular surfing guru that taught us for $40.00 made us laugh so much with his outrageous claims that it saved the day. What we'd already intuitively thought was a rip-off lesson from a guy who seemed to know and compete with every professional surfer in the world (yes Ghislaine, Kelly Slater too), seemed to make itself evident after the time had to be cut-short cause of the 'bad tides' and the pictures that couldn't be taken cause it was 'too dark'. Apparently Bodi had also gone drinking with Steve Irwin and was at his private 30-strong funeral... lol. Anyways, now comes the great camera story: To cap off a bad day, us four guys (well two girls, two guys) decided we should go to the cheap restaurant we'd attended the night before and which had seemed to have good food ( God knows we were hungry and cold after 4 hrs storm surfing ). Because I thought I'd get some good group photos of all of us, I brought along my camera. Though my fatal mistake was neglecting to keep it in my sight since there was relatively small table space, and so I'd put the camera et al on the ground. Finishing the meal, we all paid, stood up and walked away, leaving me without a thought as to the whereabouts of my camera. I'd obviously realized my mistake by the next morning, but after running down to the restaurant, I was told that no-one on shift that night or anyone working that day was given a camera by the next customer at that table, or had reported a lost camera themselves. I'd left my phone number with little hope, and understandably couldn't wait till I left the city of shit behind me. The first week of my travels was already over, and it most certainly had ended on a lowpoint. With the tattered remains of my travel hopes, I boarded the train back north to Brisbane and attempted to console myself with a couple subway foot longs and some microwaveable garlic bread...