Day 14: Brisbane --> Gold Coast --> Surfer's Paradise
Jess and I decided to sleep in as long as possible until we eventually had to wake around 9:30 because we had to check out of our hostel by 10 AM. After checking out, we weren't keen to stay in Brisbane any longer, so we made our way to the Roma St. Station to find a train to catch to go down to the Gold Coast for the final part of our trip.
The Gold Coast is a city in the state Queensland, about an hour south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is infamous for its sunny subtropical climate, surfing beaches, active nightlife, and numerous tourist attractions including theme parks, water parks, and the ever popular Steve Irwin Zoo. It is said that approximately 10 million tourists visit the Gold Coast each year. If you're an Australian, this is most likely the place that you would go on holiday.
We decided that we wanted to visit and stay in Surfer's Paradise (colloquially known as "Surfers"), the most popular suburb of the Gold Coast. After we arrived in the Gold Coast, we had to hop on another bus before we finally arrived in Surfer's Paradise around mid-afternoon. The moment I stepped off the bus I felt like I was in a slightly smaller version of Vegas. The city is heaps vibrant and just buzzing with people. Everyone in Surfer's Paradise is happy because they're on vacation!
When we arrived in Surfers we hadn't decided or booked a hostel to stay at. We had a few in mind but were still kinda undecided and didn't even know where they were located. As we were walking past the Greyhound bus terminal, we saw two boys our age sitting on a bench waiting for a bus to leave Surfers. We decided to go up to them and see where they stayed and if they could suggest anything to us. It turned out that the boys ended up being Americans and after chatting with them for a few minutes we found out that they actually live in Newcastle and go to Uni with us. One of the boys actually goes to the same Uni back in Pennsylvania as my friend Catie. Small world? The boys were actually really helpful and gave us some great advice on places to go, things to see, and where to stay. We decided to take their suggestion and stay at the Surf'N'Sun hostel because they enjoyed staying there so much. It actually turned out that we got a discount for staying there 3 nights and that we could simply go inside the bus terminal and the receptionist could arrange for them to pick us up so we wouldn't have to walk 15 minutes with our suitcases. Both a huge help!
From the moment we arrived at the hostel, we were treated like royalty. The entire staff learned our names (and remembered them), gave us "welcome lollies", actually gave as a tour of the hostel (something NO hostel ever does), and one of the staff members carried our suitcases to our room for us (what service!). The actual facilities of the hostel really weren't very nice, but the friendly atmosphere was like none other. This hostel is actually one that people generally stay at for at least a few weeks, so it was a bit weird that all of our 6 roommates were totally settled into the room and had their stuff scattered everywhere. Four of our roommates were these lovely Irish girls (2 of which were sisters) who were currently trying to find jobs in Surfers and stay there for a while. After a little bit of talking with them, we realized that they actually know my Irish friend Kevin because they met him when they were in Brisbane a few weeks earlier. SMALL WORLD?! Our other two roommates were these two very friendly and VERY TALL guys from the Netherlands. Random cultural fact: people from the Netherlands are the tallest people in the world! They were interested to talk to us because after traveling Australia, the US was their next stop so they had heaps of questions for us. They also later tried to teach us a bit of Dutch, but that was quite unsuccessful.
Jess and I then decided to spend the last few hours of our afternoon exploring the area. The city has such a fun vibe to it, but it is pretty apparent that everyone is a tourist/on vacation. We walked down to the beach so that we could see the famous Surfer's Paradise sign (pictured below).
One of the things that the boys at the bus stop suggested we do was to go up to the observatory in the Q deck. The Q deck is titled the World's Tallest Residential Building and is also the 20th tallest building in the world. So we bought our tickets (cheers to student concessions!) and got into an elevator that took us up 77 floors in about 30 seconds.
The view was absolutely amazing; you could basically see the entire city and coast. We probably spent about 45 minutes walking around the deck and taking pictures. In the second picture below, it looks like I'm standing in front of a poster, but I swear that was real!
'After we left, we were getting pretty hungry so we decided that instead of eating out every meal like we had been for the majority of break, it would be more wise for us to buy some food to cook at the hostel for the next few days. So we made our way over to Cole's and purchased our usual food items:
The Traveling American Study Abroad Student on a Budget's Shopping List
- jar of peanut butter (home brand)
- jar of jam
- loaf of bread (home brand)
- instant noodles (home brand)
- energy drinks
- apples (cheapest)
- museli bars (home brand)
Since we usually never stay in one hostel long enough to buy grocery food to cook, I never realized that the kitchen's in hostels are a great way to meet other people. I also never realized how extravagant some people get in the meals they cook themselves and their friends. We met this one really nice guy from France who just recently moved from Perth where he worked at a hotel as a chef. When we met him he was making himself this fancy meat stew while we were slapping the PB&J on some cheap, white bread. This guy felt so bad for us that he ended up INSISTING that he cook us dinner for the next 2 nights. I mean how could I turn down food cooked by a chef? The dishes he made us were so extravagant that I'm not even 100% sure what they were, but they were definitely our 2 best meals over break.
Day 15: Surfer's Paradise
Today we had more time to explore the city a bit further. We basically just mucked around the city for the entire day, going into stores and down streets as we pleased. I think we were enjoying being able to do things at our own pace since we had been on a pretty tight schedule before. We also spent a few hours down at the beach, prime people watching spot.
We remembered that before break we figured out that our friends Jenna and Keithy (who live on Jess's floor) would be in the Gold Coast at the same time as us. We gave Jenna a call, seeing if they would want to go to one of the amusement parks with us tomorrow, but they were leaving for Newcastle tomorrow. However, Jenna did invite us to meet them and Keithy's friends at the Casino that night. We didn't have any plans for the night yet, so we were pretty keen to go. So after dinner, we took a bus to the casino in the Gold Coast named Conrad Jupiter's. Jess had been to a casino before, but I hadn't so I was heaps excited! Since I'm not old enough to gamble in the states yet, and since I'm in Australia, I had to give it ago. I only let myself spend $10 and played the 1 cent slot machines (or "pokies" as the Aussies call them).
Day 16: Surfer's Paradise
Today Jess and I planned to go to Dream World, the Gold Coast's main theme park. However, when we found out that a ticket costs $70, plus the $12 in transportation we would have to pay, AND the park was only open till 5:00 PM, we decided it would be wiser to save our money. After going to Cedar Point every year of my life, I found it hard to justify spending more money an a ticket to a less awesome amusement park!
Back when I first knew that I was going to Australia, my mom told me about an art piece located in Australia by one of her favorite artists. The piece is made completely of flip flops ("thongs"). Before I left, we looked it up online and found that it was currently located at the Gold Coast Art Museum. So since I was in the Gold Coast, I thought that I'd try to find the museum so that I could take pictures of it for her. I found directions to the museum and probably SHOULD have taken a bus there, but at that very moment I was feeling especially cheap and thought it would be a better idea to save a few bucks and walk there. Well about 45 minutes of walking later, I realized I probably made the wrong decision. Once we finally arrived at the museum, I was compleatly caught off guard when I saw a flip flop covered art piece outside. I had no idea that it would be located outside the museum. So we took a few shots and hung out there until we made the hike back to Surfers.
Day 17: Surfer's Paradise --> Gold Coast --> Newcastle
After waking up and checking out, we only had a few hours to kill until we had to head to the airport. So we ate lunch and hung out in the lounge of the hostel watching movies with some other people. Around 1 PM we left to catch our shuttle and made it to the Gold Coast airport for our 3:00 PM flight back to Newcastle. The shuttle company actually made a mistake with our booking and we didn't arrive at the aiport until 2:30 PM, which actually wasn't too horrible because we were allowed to cut everybody in line to check in! Also since we were last to check in the lady gave us seats in the "Emergency Exit Row" which meant that we got twice the leg room if we argreed to "help the crew in the event of an emergency." The guy sitting next to me told me that he paid $10 extra for the seat, so we lucked out there. Arriving back in Newcastle was the most depressing moment of the past 17 days because not only did it mean that our break had come to an end and we had Uni tomororw, but it was COLD and raining.
So that brings us to the end of my spring break adventures in Australia. Stay tuned to hear about my weekend travels to Melbourne and Sydney!
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