Gold Coast

Just south of Brisbane in southeastern Queensland is a stretch of coastline named the Gold Coast, so named I suspect because of the light golden sand of the many kilometres of beaches. Of course, it likely has nothing to do with the scantily clad "meter maids" running around in gold, sequined bikinis handing out parking information to tourists and filling meters with change so unsuspecting visitors won't be given parking tickets. It is in this area that we enjoyed an extra long weekend at Surfers Paradise and Dale took his class to an abandoned penal colony on an island, Saint Helena, just off Brisbane.

Almost every city has what is called a "Show" holiday, a time of year celebrated much like the PNE and agricultural fairs of rural B.C. or the county fairs in the US. Since Toowoomba's Show was on a Thursday, we took off to the coast in the hopes we wouldn't face such long line-ups at the usual attractions. Badly in need of some R&R (rollercoasters and rapids, in this case), we headed straight for a theme park called Dreamworld. Once you pay the rather hefty entrance fee, you can go on anything and everything at no extra cost. We started off with the tame ones: riding the train around the park, two-seater airplanes that go up and down when you pull on the yoke, the swings, and other amusements that make your head spin just enough that you don't trust your stomach to even have a drink of water.

After that, it was on to bigger and better, those rides that could have been ranked according to the vomit scale we developed while negotiating the Alpine Range on our first adventure. One of rides is a car on a roller coaster type track that travels forwards at 160 kph, climbs about halfway up the tower that is another ride called the Drop of Doom, and then this car races backwards at breakneck speed to its departure area. Of course, this ride doesn't have much of a line-up because by the time you eliminate those not meeting the height restriction, who are pregnant or have neck or back problems, experience nausea or dizziness... Dale was the only one brave enough to try the Drop of Doom. I suppose the worst of it is waiting at the top, even though the view of Brisbane is spectacular, to be dropped so quickly that you experience zero gravity and your chin ends up behind your eyeballs and your eyes go bloodshot. Yahoo! At the end of the day, we took a log ride and a few trips down Thunder Rapids with friends also spending the day at Dreamworld. We got absolutely soaked but it was great fun. Learned a little about the physics of water, too, as the mass in our log filled with four adults clearly resulted in a wetter experience than the other filled with one adult, Hannah and two of her little friends!

We spent three nights in an apartment right on the beach in Surfers Paradise, which is a coastal playground renowned for its sand, surf, sun, and sin. We enjoyed a lovely view each morning sitting on the deck having breakast. Surfers Paradise comes alive at night with street theatre, open air bars, lots of primped girls in not much clothing, and young lads with hipster board shorts and tattooed shoulders. The surf culture abounds here. It's laid back, has a lingo all its own, and the day is broken into two parts: the early morning when the surf is high and after 8:00 p.m. when the "day" really starts. Surfers is a holiday destination. The beaches are covered in soft, white sand which gradually turns to grassy areas dotted with palm trees. Walking paths snake along its shoreline, which is guarded by a wall of highrises. Surfers uses more water in a year than the entire city of Brisbane, and in a state plagued with drought and under severe water restrictions, that is a worry. We visited our friends at their hotel one day and it even had its own lagoon, beach sand and all.

After a day at Dreamworld we headed for Wet 'n Wild, and our day was both of those! At one point, it rained so heavily that we had to get out of the water and seek shelter. Jodi looked to all those Surf and Lifesaving Club teams that were also visiting that day and who were vacating pools immediately after the first booms of thunder, exclaiming to all that where there was thunder, there was lightning. Our first ride at this waterpark was on Mammoth Falls, and it was a good thing we were all unsuspecting riders because it was nearly our last. We were jostled all over the slide, were white-knuckled from hanging on for fear of flipping over, and ended up just drenched. Later on in the day, Jodi proclaimed after being spat out the other end of a slide called Twister that her bathing suit had travelled to regions bathing suits should not go. The most exciting rides were ones you take on rafts in totally enclosed slides. They are so dark and fast that you have no idea what's coming. You'd think the blood-curdling screams would ward off sliders, but people brave those hundreds of steps each time just for a brief thrill ride to the bottom. Like a ski hill, the rides are rated as green (easy), blue ( intermediate) and black diamond (terror rides). Hannah went on almost every one of them, though loved the massive wave pool the most.

One night, we visited a famous fish shop that has displays of fresh fish, crab, lobster, prawns, squid, etc. like an upscale jewellery store has displays of diamonds. You can buy anything there and they also have cooked fish meals. We shelled freshly cooked king prawns that were the size of teacup saucers and savoured fresh fish and chips. Eating outdoors right on the beach added to the ambience, especially with waves crashing behind and salt air wafting up from the sea.


Dale was fortunate to spend some more time in the Gold Coast region as his class went on a field trip to Saint Helena, an old penal colony site. You access this area only by ferry so it's a bit of an Alcatraz, though not as many buildings remain standing. Prisoners manufactured all manner of things from shoes and clothing, grew vegetables, and raised cows for meat and dairy products . Records indicate that after a cyclone, all the cows were washed off the island and into the sea where, naturally, the sharks had a feeding frenzy. So, enclosures of steel bars were erected so people could swim safely. Everywhere else has shark nets, though we're both confused by, and in awe of, their effectiveness. The nets stretch a few hundred meters across and down, running parallel to the beach. The only thing is, they don't stretch across the entire patrolled beach area. Ontop of that, they're often lifted so they can be pressure washed. Now, either those sharks are just plain stupid or so full of the bait fish hung off the nets and nearby buoys, that they don't wander under or around the nets. Most attacks and deaths are surfers who are way beyond the nets or where there are none, or people swimming or spearfishing in unpatrolled areas. Either way, it's just us foreigners who seem to be preoccupied by it all, just like Australians here all think they have to worry most about being attacked by a bear if they visit Canada.