If you’re looking to travel and surf then this might be the post for you. In our stable of travelling experiences we have a few guys who’ve slung on some doggers, prayed to Kahuna and surfed until the sun tells them it’s time to go home.

AJ (@spintheglobe) is a serious surfer; he’s often regaled me with stories of south coast excursions in the middle of winter to catch some waves regardless of freezing temperatures. That is seriously dedicated. He’s a well travelled guy and has recently applied for STA Travel’s World Traveller Internship. Recently he surfed his way down the East coast of America…

Another hero on our Explorer surf team is Chris (@curiouscheese); he’s currently carving his way through Australia. It didn’t all go according to plan though as his timing in terms of finding the surf seemed a little off. You can read about this in his article on the Drift Europe website,

“Sure, western Oz has some of the most insane line-ups you could ever get your stick wet in, and the mutant slabs of Margaret River offer suicidal-looking, dredging barrels on the right swell. But there wasn’t any. It looked promising for one brief day, but there was no way I was going to tackle 6-foot shore dumps in just inches of water – I left that to the local spongers.”

Finally we have George (@Gvee). He’s new to the art. In fact it was only last week he caught his first wave and referred to his surf experience as his new favourite thing,

“Words cannot express how happy surfing has made me feel, so I am not going to try. Instead I will leave you with this: do it. Just do it.

George out.”

Are you looking to travel and surf, or have you already been on a surfari? Tell us about it.

Today I’ve decided to treat you to some of the very best Flickr has to offer on Burleigh Heads. At Experience the Gold Coast, we’ve already had some great entries and Burleigh Heads has been among them. However, the joy of a wiki is that it can never be full, so if you’ve got something to add drop by and add your experience.

On to the photos…

This picture was uploaded by the State Library of Queensland and features some very hip kids. Note the excellent high-waist swimming trunks and, a joy for those who miss film photography, the finger print to the right of the group.

Looking through images of Australia does suggest that every single dawn and dusk is unbelievably beautiful. S_Amuli’s image is no exception.

Surfing features heavily in the Burleigh Heads world and Elene_K snapped this fellow doing exactly that. She’s also played with the colours giving the image a vintage feel.

This pic of the Burleigh Heads break was captured by Cascade_of_rant who has a whole host of impressive images from Australia worth having a look at.

Last but not least we have ~gypsyrose~, who gives us Burleigh Heads through a fisheye, an effect that I can’t get enough of.

I’ll be dipping into Flickr again next Friday on a specific destination, so if you’d like to have your work featured or have a suggestion for where you’d like me to grab some pictures of let me know. Equally if you’ve got a Burleigh Heads image you’d like to share, leave us a link to it below.

We’ve got further travelling experiences this morning from STA Explorer George. Although we named him Nose Slide in New York, he’s now in Oz and enjoying it to the full,

“Australia! Boy has this been a fun filled few days already…”

He’s already done the Grampians and Great Ocean Road tour that treated him to some spectacular scenery including the 12 (although only eight remain) apostles and taken part in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras! Not bad going,

“Before you ask, […] no I’m not, but I still had an excellent time marching and dancing through the centre of the city passing the millions of spectators.”

And if that wasn’t enough he’s also squeezed in a trip to the zoo. This guy doesn’t stop. To get up to date with all his travelling experiences visit his blog gvee.co.uk. Oh, and he isn’t a half bad photographer either…

Fraser Island has ranked high on Amar’s (our STA Explorer known as Gap Year Go Getter) list of favourite destinations since he’s been travelling. And this is despite the negatives of sand getting everywhere and the loss of his flip-flops.

He’s in love with the emerald water of Lake Wabby, the beaches of Lake Mackenzie that rival those of Whitehaven and the ‘stunning’ views from Indian Head. The romantic mood continues,

“You’ll also never have a better chance to watch the stars. It’s as quiet as you want it to be and you can see every star in the sky. I spent hours one night watching shooting stars. I made a lot of wishes that night, let’s hope they come true.”

He produced the video a few weeks ago, but has only had the opportunity to post it on Gap Year Escape now, enjoy Fraser Island with Amar.

Continuing our Travel Tuesday feature of highlighting travel blogs we are today featuring Nomadic Matt.

Nomadic Matt is, as his blog states, about life untethered. He refers to himself as twenty-something vagabond, who has been on the road regularly since 2005,

“My original trip was supposed to last a year. I didn’t come home until 18 months later. Once back, I knew I couldn’t go back to my old life or a typical job - I wanted to travel more. Three months later, I was traveling again. I haven’t stopped since.”

His about page passes on more info on how he came to where he is now an also features interesting facts. Did you no Nomadic Matt once got lost in a jungle?

Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site contains tips, his blog, photos, videos and more all on where he’s been and what he’s done. You can find him on YouTube, Twitter @nomadicmatt, Facebook and FriendFeed. If you want to know insider knowledge about a specific destination, from hostels in NZ to learning to scuba-dive its likely Matt will be able to help you out.

Matt, on this fine Travel Tuesday, you’re our man.

As you know, alongside STA Travel and Very Gold Coast, we are raising awareness all about the Gold Coast by setting up a pretty exciting Wiki page to feature anyone’s and everyone’s experiences, from the best beaches to the hottest hotels! And seeing as Chris recently hit his 4 month anniversary in Australia, what better way to celebrate than to making his way to the Gold Coast?

So far he has used his photographic skills to the highest of their ability on their way to Newcastle:

“After a good nights sleep by the lake we hit the road again for a quick breakfast stop (well a supply stop at Coles!) in Gosford and then ploughed up the coast to Newcastle. On the way there we couldn’t bring ourselves to avoid an amusing photo stop at Mooney Creek :)”

Beautiful!

They also had a bit of a disappointing fishing trip in Forster:

“Our first stop was the beach side town of Forster. After a quick drive around we found ourselves at a little fishing spot just round the corner from the harbour. We busted out the lines and past the afternoon trying to hook some Spanish Mackerel for tea…the cruised around taunting us but we hooked nothing but annoying little bream ”

And had an awesome surf in Coffs Harbour:

“I was soon wettied up and headed down the shoreline for a surf. What resulted was the kind of surf I’d headed to Oz for, slowly peeling but with enough punch to get my turns out All with a headland backdrop and orange sky…. and it was made even better when I was greeted with a cup of coffee when I got out!”

It all sounds pretty amazing, and that isn’t even the start of it as:

“The road trip has well and truly begun…”

If you have any wonderful adventures about your travels in, to and from the Gold Coast, then get blogging, tweeting, snapping and podcasting all about it!

#ExperienceGC

What follows is an update on three of our STA Explorers who’ve all been up to some rather excellent travel related shenanigans.

The always entertaining Lucy has begun her adventure, and ‘I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t covered in sand!’ is her first post since landing! I’ll warn you now; it’s lengthy, but worth your time as it covers the arrival in Thailand and the 10 subsequent days. There has been noodle eating, socialising with fellow travellers and chilling on the beach, among other activities,

“Got to the [Full Moon] party and got body painted up in preparation and then got well and truly stuck in on the beach with M and P and 30,000 others! The beach was AMAZING […]”

Good work Lucy! Body paint is one way of preparing for mixing with others while globe trotting, another method might be to learn the language, I give you Michael,

How cool is that? He even amends an error in pronunciation – that’s attention to detail. I love audioBoo and I’m becoming quite a fan of Michael too!

Finally Marianne of £10 Pom fame who has been writing about Canberra, Australia Day, and hooking up with travelling friends,

“After Tom, the Brits kept coming. Chris, Kerri and Kat (who spent just a bit more than £10 to fly Down Under) arrived in their camper van after exploring Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. I count Chris among my STA connections thanks to Cam and the lovely people at STA travelbuzz.”

In case you’ve not heard about Chris he’s another Explorer, his camper van trails can be found at The Wanderings of a Devonshire Boy.

As you can see our tribe of Explorers continues to grow, new and old - but all superb and full of travelling experiences on a variety of destinations. Love ‘em!