Road Trip: Surfers Paradise
Happy Wednesday!
I missed a few posts on Friday and Monday because I am waiting for a special guest to write something up, so stay tuned for that!
Yay it's Wednesday. Tj and I are both busy at work, and we have a lot of life admin stuff we need to get sorted out, so I am really looking forward to having more time over the weekend.
Let's continue on our road trip! Our first stops were Seal Rocks and Port Macquarie. Next up - Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast! This was about a 5.5 hour drive from Port Macquarie. Another long driving day. This was the furthest point of our road trip. We weren't even going to go there, but it was so close to where we were going that we thought we'd squeeze in a night and check it out. We had seen a good price for a nice hotel earlier in the day so we called them as we got close to town but they said they only had suites left. We were pretty close to town so Tj pulled over in a parking lot so we could both look for places to stay. I found a great deal at the hotel we had called - seemed like they had rooms after all. We were a little apprehensive when we pulled up to check in. The desk clerk told me there was a glitch in their system and they didn't know how I booked a room. The only room they had left to give us was - tada - the suite! Haha. Score! We were so giddy. The room was gorgeous and way bigger than any apartment we've ever lived in. The best part was it had a view of the ocean. We could see waves! So cool.
That night we walked around and had a delicious dinner. We continued our road trip tradition of getting Baskin Robbins for dessert.
The next morning we went for a quick breakfast (at McDonald's!) because we wanted to hurry up and hit the beach. We loved the way there were lots of high-rises right beside the water. It was nice to walk along the boardwalk and browse in the shops of the Cavill Avenue pedestrian mall. Here are some things I learned about Surfers Paradise from online here:
Was renamed Surfers Paradise in 1933, named after a popular hotel
The Gold Coast, including Surfers Paradise, is the sixth largest city in Australia
The first high-rise was built in 1959
In the 60s and 70s, it was Australia's nightlife and part capital
Three kilometres of beach!
Since 1964, the Surfers Paradise Meter-maids have dressed in skimpy gold outfits to walk around and top off people's parking meters (note: we did not see any!). This was introduced at the same time as paid parking, and local businesses didn't want that to scare away tourists.
On our way out of town, we stopped at the Pacific Fair shopping mall and it was probably the nicest shopping mall I've ever been to! We stopped at the grocery store to get some snacks for the car ride but it was only a short drive to our next road trip destination. And the next stop was our favourite place of the whole road trip!