Gold Coast 14th/15th/16th/17th

Time ticked on after our last blog and finally it was time for us to visit the Gold Coast! We had planned to check out the evening markets in surfers paradise and see where we went from there. The road to surfers paradise was horrible! This made Myles very cross. It took an hour for a 23 minute drive.. The road that took us to the Gold Coast was littered with traffic lights that never seemed to be green! Finally we arrived & could see the markets on the sea front. Next job was finding a park! Being the masters of not paying for parking we found a side street with road works and a hotel which was free to park in lukcily! It meant a small walk to the markets but it was all long surfers paradise beach which was a lovely walk. It was still pretty warm and the sea breeze was very much welcomed. 

We spent a good hour checking out all the stalls and tasting all the free samples! This gave us lots of cake and macaroons as well as beef jerky, nougat, jams and sauces and flavoured popcorns. This was much better than the farmers markets in Byron! Whilst looking at the stalls we saw the parking wombles in pairs for safety putting numerous tickets on people's cars. Shortly after we saw the Gold Coast 'meter maids' some very pretty blonde girls in gold bikinis putting more money in peoples parking meters. Something we had never seen before! Apparently it's a charity sort of thing that's been going on for years! We had a wonder down some of the streets of the Gold Coast and watched a few street performers before heading off home for dinner! We arrived back at our campsite by 8pm and cooked up a beef stroganoff which wasn't the best in the world.. Dinner quickly eaten and it was time for bed. 

15th

We had a slow start to the day which was a nice change and didn't leave the campsite till 11 where we headed back to surfers paradise to check out the sand sculpting competition they have on the beach. We had a good look at them an took a few photos (gallery when wifi provides!) here's one we saw in a shopping mall though! 

After spending a long time nosing around we headed for the sea! Within seconds of hitting the beach we were in the water. Being surfers paradise the waves were a little bigger than usual and they traveled in different directions which was strange. After spending a long time in the sea we sunbathed for a while and then headed for a wonder around town. 

After this we picked up some chicken drumsticks for dinner and headed back for the campsite. Feeling very hot dinner was deposited in the fridge and us in the pool! Tonight for dinner was BBQd Portuguese chicken with rice and mash potato. There was an addition of salad too that was donated to us by some lovely Swedish girls who had too much salad. This was very well appreciated as it took the spice out of the chicken a bit! This was followed by more Olympics, wifi use & bed. 

16th

Today was a special day because it is our 4 year anniversary. We had planned to go to dreamworld today but being the weekend we decided to have a late anniversary treat! 

So today was a very chilled out day. We started off using the wifi so Laura could ring home for a chat which ended up taking about 2 hours! Oops. Next we headed to our local beach which had lots of kitesurfing, windsurfing and paddle boarding. Sadly no where to hire these things everyone just seemed to be very keen! The water was beautifully calm as the beach was secluded & was a family beach as we found out when we were surrounded with children! We weren't there very long for this reason! With that we decided to make use of the campsite pool and sunbeds. We spent most of our time here chatting to other people. We headed back to our tent for an early shower and met 2 pommies from Milton Keynes who we eneded up talking to for a good hour and a bit about travels and what not. After this showers and Laura tried to revive her very dry and mostly dead hair to no avail. All this pool and sea salt has killed her hair making the need for a haircut even bigger! Nails painted and hair done, Myles shaved and we looked a bit less like campers! 

After a short drive back to surfers paradise again we were at Myles' chosen bar for dinner. And this is the reason,

The fat bastard challenge. 

The challenge was accepted and the plate was clean at the end.

 We rolled ourselves back to the car after this and felt very sorry for ourselves and headed home. Laura decided we needed to sing so put on U2 followed by Cher Believe. This was great windows down singing away until we got to some traffic lights where a very confused looking Ozzie who then gave Myles a big thumbs up, we waved and set off again! Once home we skulked off to our tent and had a very good nights sleep! (This is where the Laura part of the blog ends)

17th Dream World

Australia is known for the beaches but one place in particular. The Gold Coast. The Gold Coast has the feel of a very hot wealthy European City. Massive sky scrapers with a golden beach. However the Gold Coast is also known for its theme parks. There are many to choose from depending on what you like. From water parks to animal parks to movie parks to rollercoasters.

We elected to go for dreamworld as it had rollercoasters along with a waterpark, Laura also found BOGOF tickets!!

We left with plenty of time to spare only to sit in traffic for an hour. Eventually we got there and waited for it to open. We we're let in and ran around like kids. I made Laura do a couple of rollercoasters as she has a fear of them and I wanted her to conquer her fear. I found one that was just straight up and then back again basically flat then vertical then back to the flat again. We strapped in with Laura feeling a little overwhelmed. 3, 2, 1 and crickey!! What we failed to realise is that it was the fastest one on the Gold Coast. 0-100mph is delt with in 2.5seconds. That's 5.0G! It went vertical then back to the start. I looked across to see Laura in tears. Ok next one will be a little less fierce.

We went to the Madagascar rollercoasters which was much more civilised. So much so that we did it twice!! (Laura's choice!) 

then we had a few goes on the bumper cars as Laura loves those. This was followed by a log ride, trip through a small animal sanctuary. We felt brave and had another go on a rollercoaster. This was cyclone, not particularly fast but plenty going on. We climbed in and were strapped in. We set off and climbed up overlooking the park. Then to drop with Laura screaming rather loudly until she decided she felt sick when the screaming stopped. Then we got to the loops and the swearing started. We arrived back at the station and Laura got off telling me she hated me. Waterpark time it was. 

We got changed and again ran around like kids. Laura was much happier on flumes (so was I actually) there was only one flume which Laura didn't do (I did). You stand on a platform and it falls away from you, so you fall vertically and then it curves into a pool at the bottom at a speed of 45mph. We did all of them including the green room which is a funnel on its side. This was hilarious as Laura went backwards. 

(The green funnel is the green room!)

It started to cool off so we dried off by another rollercoaster and many many goes on the bumper cars.

As there was no line we just kept going. We finished off with another log ride (different than before) we didn't do it in the morning as there was a 45 min wait. After getting off we didn't know what the wait was for?! 

But because we were there at 5pm we just jumped straight on! We took some photos and jumped in the car. 

The drive home was only about 15 mins this time! We flopped on the sofas to catch up with the Olympics then went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly!!