Goin' Down the Goldie

The Gold Coast refers to most of the area south of Brisbane, from around Logan to the New South Wales border. “Gold Coast” is actually the name of a city, although it is made up by many smaller towns, most notably, Surfer’s Paradise. The area is one of the largest city areas in the country after the mainland capitals and a huge tourist destination, especially for groups of Japanese tourists. I thought this was a stereotype when I first heard about it, but the two main languages you can find guidebooks and information in are English and Japanese.

The beaches along the Gold Coast are gorgeous and wonderful for surfing (or so I’m told…I’m yet to actually swim in the beaches, much less make a moron out of myself trying to surf). The waves are big and brilliant blue, and the beaches are golden and well-trodden, yet have plenty of space for everyone. The only problem is the fact that this natural wonder has been spoiled by commercialism, with anything natural besides the beaches being totally bulldozed and replaced by the natural beauty of high-rises instead.

Surfer’s Paradise is the worst offender in this case. Much of the rest of the Gold Coast is built up as well (and constantly having more built), but Surfers’ are the skyscrapers you can see from well inland and all up and down the coast. This town used to have the much more modest name of Elston, but Jim Cavill, the hotel owner who built the Surfer’s Paradise hotel, eventually got it changed to Surfer’s Paradise in an effort to attract more people and, more importantly, money. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time in Surfer’s, generally avoiding it and either going other places on the Gold Coast, or even better, up the Sunshine Coast instead. There are a couple main roads, including Cavill Avenue, which boasts the well-photographed “Surfer’s Paradise” sign, where most activity is centered, especially during schoolies week. If you want a feed, a shop, or simply want to people-watch, this is your mecca.

There are plenty of other towns along the Coast, from Broadbeach to Coolangatta, which all offer various amounts of shopping and surfing. I didn’t mind Broadbeach or the Spit, but I much preferred the Sunshine Coast with its much less frenetic and touristy atmosphere.

Quick Tips:

There are plenty of theme parks slightly inland from the coast to keep you occupied for the day, as well as carnival rides and random other rides like small bungee-jumps. There’s also plenty of shopping, especially on the weekend with the markets. The beaches are beautiful and safe as long as you swim between the flags. However, I much preferred the Sunshine Coast, which, while it does not offer theme parks and rides, offers shopping and much more pristine, natural beaches. I recommend going to the Gold Coast at least once to see the beaches and maybe do a few activities, but in general the Sunshine Coast is much more worth a trip, if you can spare a bit of extra time for transport. I think the surf is better along the Gold Coast, but my boyfriend lived on the Sunshine Coast and surfed for many years.

I enjoyed going out to the Spit, which is to the North of Southport and fairly close to Seaworld. The Spit is the end of the mainland, with a little river separating it and South Stradbroke Island. There was a great view of the Surfer’s skyline here, along with some nice beaches, although we didn’t go on them because it was a very windy/rainy day. I thought it pretty interesting that this is where surfers park and then swim across the river (not the easiest thing to do, especially with the looming rocks waiting to eat them on the Straddy side) to go surfing on Straddy without paying the price for the ferry. Straddy, at least at this end, is pretty much uninhabited and just has miles and miles of beach being lapped at by the Pacific Ocean. This isn’t a patrolled beach, at least that I could see, but it left plenty of space for the surfers to catch any wave they wanted.

Best Way To Get Around:

The transportation on the Gold Coast is, for lack of any better words, absolutely atrocious. For the volume of people that come through this area, especially day-trippers from Brisbane, this makes absolutely no sense. The Sunshine Coast suffers from the same problem, with a total lack of bus lines and information. I have detailed my fun experiences with the Gold Coast transport system in an experience under the same name. I can just hope that whenever I want to go down the Gold Coast, I have access to a car.

Getting to the Gold Coast area isn’t bad. The air train runs express to the Gold Coast, and you luckily don’t have to pay the ridiculous normally charged on the air train as long as you aren’t actually getting on at the airport. The train stops at the main stations in central and south Brisbane—Brunswick St (in the Valley), Central, Roma St, South Brisbane, and South Bank. From there, it runs express with only a few stops to the Gold Coast. This runs along the same line that goes to the Logan area, but I recommend the express train, as you will make it probably an hour faster. One recommendation learned from experience: make sure you use the toilets before you hop on the train. It’s at least an hour’s journey, and unlike the Sunshine Coast express, there’s not a toilet in sight.

Once at your station of choice, generally Coomera or Nerang, there are shuttle buses to take you to the actual coast, since the train runs a fair bit inland. As long as you buy a ticket for the correct number of zones when starting your journey, you won’t have to pay any extra for these buses. But beware: if you want to go anywhere besides the major shopping centres or beaches, it’s a bit of a hassle.

For the majority of our stay in Brisbane, Dreamworld was not even on our radar since it was really just another theme park, and one that cost a lot of money to visit at that. Plus, after watching entirely too much Big Brother (Dreamworld is the home of the BB House), we had learned to associate Dreamworld with the hideously annoying BB music, and we really didn’t want that playing through our heads any more than necessary. However, when my friend was walking down the street and happened upon six coupons for half off a trip to the park, we decided we might as well go. Plus, it was a great way to procrastinate studying for those not-far-off finals!

We had originally planned on driving to Dreamworld, but when more people decided to come along, we decided to hop on a train instead. This was relatively painless and got us to Dreamworld in about the same amount of time it would have taken to drive, and only cost us around $9 for a concession all-day ticket. When we got off at Coomera, we had to pay to ride the shuttle to Dreamworld, which was not that far from the station but just far enough to merit not walking.

The line to get into Dreamworld was not that bad compared to many theme parks I have visited, although we went before the end of the school year for both high school and uni students. I recommend getting there as soon as the park opens, especially in winter, since even arriving at 10am we only had 6 ½ hours in the park. Once we got into the park, we were surprised at how small it was compared to the big theme parks at home. We only counted around five major rides in the entire place.

The first ride we attempted to get on was the Cyclone. This is pretty much the only traditional, ride-in-a-car-up-and-down-hills roller coaster in the park. It is one of the tallest roller coasters in the Southern Hemisphere and was brought in from Luna Park in Sydney. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to experience this high-speed thrill ride for a while, due to an incredibly slow-moving line. We got to watch a man totally abuse the attendant at the head of the line, who obviously had nothing to do with the fact that the line was not moving, to the point that he actually got escorted out of the ride, so at least we had entertainment. We considered leaving the ride, which many others did, but by that point we had waited entirely too much time already so we stuck it out. The coaster was fun but was nothing exceptional really—just a typical coaster with a couple of loops and drops.

We then headed over to the most touted ride in the park, the brand new Claw.

This review is continued in Dreamworld, part 2.

This is a continuation of my Dreamworld review.

This ride had a considerably shorter and quicker-moving line, even though it was the one thing that everyone was trying to ride. The best way I can describe this ride is an innovative swinging-pirate-ship ride. The Claw swings you back and forth like the typical pirate ship, but rather than simply going back and forth and getting higher and higher, it spins as well. Everyone sits in a circle facing the outside. While the ride doesn’t completely do loops, you do go high enough that you are literally sitting still upside down for a few seconds. I thought I would get incredibly sick on this, due to the many directions of motion happening all at once, but I was perfectly fine. The ride was definitely my favorite at Dreamworld and was thoroughly enjoyable from the very beginning.

Everyone else in my group went on the Wipe Out, which I totally refused to ride because I didn’t want to ruin the rest of my day with motion sickness. This ride has two long rows of riders, either facing the crowd or facing the wall behind the ride. It then takes those riders and swings them in all sorts of directions, supposedly like wiping out on a wave. It was interesting to see the ratio of guys to girls on this ride—the restraints, which come over your shoulders and between your legs, automatically lock into place at the beginning, leaving you with no room to wiggle, which the guys didn’t appreciate too much when stopped upside down! James’ friend even tried breathing out to keep the restraints from being so tight, but once he breathed in they locked further into place, since any wiggle room could mean falling out on this ride.

The food at Dreamworld was not particularly great, and obviously overpriced (you’re not at a theme park unless you’re paying out the nose for everything!). I had some sort of chicken and chips meal with mealy fries that it pained me to finish, yet I felt I should because of the price. There wasn’t much option at all for my wheat-allergic friend.

Two of the other “Big 5” that we rode were the Tower of Terror and the Giant Drop. The Tower of Terror is nothing like its namesake at Disney World—it was much more like the “Greezed Lightning” at poor deceased Astroworld. It’s a ride where you get in and are launched off at more than 60 miles per hour along the ground and then up the side of a tower. This one was very tall, and used to hold the record for being the tallest ride of its kind but it lacked the loop of the Greezed Lightning. Nevertheless, still a fun and quite exhilarating ride, and one that you could ride again and again if the people in line didn’t object.

This review is continued in Dreamworld, part 3.

This review is a continuation of Dreamworld, part 2.

The Giant Drop was indeed Giant—nearly twice the size of the DungeonDrop, the 22-story drop ride at Astroworld. Its line was giant as well, since one of the two sides of the ride, each of which hold eight people, was closed down. We couldn’t decide whether it was broken or whether they just didn’t want people using the ride to get a peek into the Big Brother House. We ended up having to wait at least an hour to get anywhere close to the beginning of this ride, which was a bit ridiculous, but again, by the time we realized the line was going nowhere, there was no point leaving. Plus, it was the only main ride we had to check off our list.

While we were waiting in line, my friends who thought the ride was a bit much decided to wander off to the back of Dreamworld instead. There, they found a small wildlife park, including the obligatory kangaroos. The joeys were now old enough to actually be hopping around with their mothers, since it was the beginning of June, so they enjoyed seeing that. They also saw a lot of Big Brother stuff, like a life size picture of all the housemates, but not the house, since it’s secluded off somewhere in the woods or something. I personally think the house would be much better if people could stand outside and hurl abuse.

My friends made it back to watching the Giant Drop long before we actually made it on the ride, but that meant that we actually got pictures of ourselves on it that didn’t cost $100 or some other ridiculous sum. The ride itself was exceptionally long for a drop ride, since they take you to the top and leave you there for a good 45 seconds, so you can contemplate your stupidity in stepping on the ride in the first place. We busied ourselves looking for the Coast (tall buildings in the distance, but no water), and the Big Brother House, which was again nowhere to be found. Then there was a click and a couple seconds later the ride was over.

The park closed at the ridiculously early time of 5pm, being the winter season, but we managed to squeeze in a ride on the Claw and the Wipeout before we left. I actually rode on the Wipeout this time and realized there was nothing to be worried about because I felt totally fine afterwards. It was a good ride, but the Claw still took the trophy as being my favorite in the park.

I can’t compare this park to any other theme parks in Australia, but I thought it was decent, albeit very small for the theme parks I am used to visiting. The admission price is exceptionally steep ($65...luckily we had coupons!) when you compare it to the number of rides available, but it was still a fun day out.

In January, both the men’s and the women’s tennis tours start their years in the scorching Australian summer. The men’s tournaments are centered in southern Australia—Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne—so I was sad that the first time I would be in Australia in the summer, I wouldn’t be able to catch any tennis. Then I was surprised by seeing advertising for the Australian Women’s Hardcourts down the Gold Coast, featuring Maria Sharapova and the comeback of Martina Hingis. I figured the Gold Coast was slightly more accessible from Brisbane than say, Melbourne, so I bought a ticket online and hopped on a train.

The website for the Women’s Hardcourts, located at the Royal Pines Resort near Nerang, made it seem so simple to find the place via public transport—see my review of “Gold Coast Transport” and you’ll see that that wasn’t quite true, at least in my case. You can ride the train to Nerang and find your way to the Resort from there, but I would advise driving instead—the driving directions on the website were very detailed and will take you directly to the resort, where your only problem will be finding a car.

Unfortunately, Maria Sharapova had pulled out of the tournament, citing a sore something-or-other, but I made sure that Martina Hingis was on the schedule before I went. My seat was very good and only about four rows back, directly behind one of the player’s chairs. The first match I saw was between two unknowns, Safarova and Gajdosova. It was an error-filled match, and the most amusement came from Gadjosova‘s incredibly vocal coach and her own on court antics. I can’t say much, being a bit of a psycho on the tennis courts as well, but she was rather unprofessional and I soon found myself cheering for Safarova, who barely eked through in 3 sets.

The next match was Martina Hingis/Tatiana Golovin against the Olympic Gold medalists Li and Sun. Unfortunately, just before this match, a huge, smelly man came and sat next to me, and proceeded to spread his legs out into half of my allotted area and then eat in a very loud and grotesque manner. The people on the other side of him actually got up and moved, it was that bad.

The match was a very well-played one, and great to watch. A good doubles match always provides more entertainment than singles because it is so much more fast-paced. Hingis was definitely on her game and gave a very good interview afterwards. I wasn’t a fan of her before she retired, but I left the tournament feeling much differently.

Since the court was covered, it was a bit stuffy watching, but much better than the alternative of scorching in the sun. The court was small and intimate, and between matches, the announcers tried to get the crowd involved to stave away the boredom. Overall, it was a good place to watch a nice day of tennis, provided you bring plenty of water!

When we found out about the Broadbeach Blues festival, we jumped at the chance to go. Not only would we get to sit on the beach and listen to music, but we’d finally get to see the Gold Coast without actually going to Surfer’s Paradise.

We had no problems getting to the festival—we just jumped on the express bus to Broadbeach Pacific Fair from the Nerang train station. Once at Pac Fair, we had a bit of a look around the shops and a bite to eat before walking over to the convention centre. It wasn’t too bad of a walk, although if we had wanted, we could have caught a bus instead.

The convention centre wasn’t particularly lively when we got there. There were bands warming up in the hallways but no band playing in the actual stage area, so we left and wandered on up the road to find the source of the music we could hear echoing off the high-rises. We finally found another stage, set up on a smaller street lined with cafes. There were rows of plastic seats and plenty of standing room, so we chilled and listened to a couple bands there before moving on.

The main stage for the Blues Festival was in a little park that had been completely fenced off save one entrance. People had laid out their picnic lunches and blankets facing the large stage towards one end, so we did the same, minus the picnic lunches and blankets. We enjoyed just lying there staring at the sky and the high-rises. A couple bands came and went, but I can’t say I remember their names, just that one of the men was a really big hippie. The festival wasn’t really about listening to “name-brand” bands, but rather, just enjoying the music.

Eventually, the sun began sinking lower and lower so we took to the beach while we could still see it. It wasn’t the warmest day—I was wearing thermals—so we didn’t go swimming (and we only saw one person that did), but again, just sat down and listened to the music from there. It really is quite a nice beach, with wonderful golden soft sand and great, blue waves, so it’s too bad that it has been spoiled with obsessive commercialism—especially if you look to the north towards Surfers.

One very odd thing that happened while we were on the beach, some tourists wandered by, snapped some shots of either us or something behind us, and then continued wandering. They were wearing high heels and walking along the beach. The Gold Coast is well known for the fact that it attracts many Japanese tourists (so many that it offers guide books in English and Japanese), but we still thought this a little strange.

Overall, we enjoyed the festival and I was tempted to go back again this year, and probably would have had it not been such a long commute.

Since Brisbane has a relatively decent transport system, in which you can get pretty much anywhere you need in the city given enough time and a propensity to change modes of transport (given it's not past midnight, in which case you’re screwed), I was amazed to see how poor the Gold Coast’s transportation system was in comparison. Coming from Houston, I don’t ask for much—just something to get me from point A to point B without having to have a car. I mean, Houston is the home of the most brilliant public transport system in the world—a whole 7 miles of light rail.

Getting to the Gold Coast area from Brisbane is pretty simple. All one has to do is jump on the Gold Coast express train, anywhere between the airport and South Bank (most people catch it at Roma Street or Central Station), and after about an hour, you are in the Gold Coast area. However, just like going north of Brisbane, for some reason the train lines go pretty far inland, so a bus is required to get to anything resembling “coast”. If you have a clear idea of exactly where you want to go—for instance, Dreamworld, which lies just along the line in Coomera and has a courtesy shuttle, or Surfer’s Paradise, where most of the bus lines at the train station terminate, you’re fine. However, if you want to go anywhere off the beaten path, like the Australian Women’s Hardcourts tournament at the local golf and tennis resort, you’re in for a bit more of an exciting journey.

I jumped on a bus at Nerang station that went through Broadbeach Pac Fair, which went along a road mentioned in the directions in the resort’s website. However, the bus was either an express without me knowing it, or the bus driver was just not in a good mood that day, but when I saw the sign stating “Royal Pines Resort 1km”, I pushed the “STOP” button…and the bus stopped when it got to the Pacific Fair Shopping Centre. Not very helpful.

I decided that, having been to Pac Fair once before and remembering a visitor’s centre there, I would seek help. When I arrived at the visitor’s centre, I found that no one working there had the first clue of how I would make it to the resort without having my own car. They finally gave me a brochure of a bus line they felt might take me reasonably close, so I headed back to the bus stop.

Once at the bus stop, I tried to board the bus of the correct number, yet the driver told me rather rudely that he went nowhere near the resort and didn’t know who did. I then proceeded to wait and board every bus going in the right direction, yet no bus driver said they would drop me at the resort, but all of them were full of useful information like what other bus number had a driver I could harass. Each of these subsequent buses yielded no further results, even the one sporting a “Tennis Australia” sticker.

I finally gave in and, had I not have already bought my ticket, probably would have just given up and gone to sit on the beach for the rest of the day. But, since I didn’t want to just dump $30 down the drain and the starting time for the first match had already passed, I decided to fork out the money and get in a taxi cab. The driver was really nice and actually knew where he was going, which I was starting to wonder if anyone on the Gold Coast was capable of doing. He also assured me that it wasn’t just me that was incapable of navigating the Gold Coast’s transport system and that it really is crap.

After the matches were over, my day got even more interesting. I decided that, instead of tossing another $20 at a taxi driver, I would find my way back to the main road to Nerang, where I would either catch one of the buses that might drive by or walk to the Nerang station, which wasn’t all that far away. However, I somehow got mixed up and turned the wrong way when leaving the resort. When I got to the next main road crossing mine, I happened to see a bus labeled “Surfer’s Paradise” so I headed in the opposite direction. It should have clued me in that perhaps this was not a heavily pedestrian trafficked road when I had to cross the road to find a sidewalk, but I continued walking since I kept seeing signs for Nerang.

I walked, and walked, and walked. There was mostly nothing, not even many cars, and every once in a while a couple buses, although I never saw any stops for them to actually stop at. My one map that I had been given at the visitor’s centre wasn’t much good, since it only showed the bus route which I had obviously slightly deviated from. I was absolutely, totally lost, with only the road signs to help me on my way—and those signs didn’t have any distances or anything other than a name and an arrow, which was just enough to give me false hope that Nerang might just be around the next corner.

After a good hour, my legs were threatening to give out on me. It was the middle of the summer and therefore rather warm, and I was already dehydrated from sitting outside watching tennis for the entire afternoon. Most importantly, the sun was moving closer and closer to the hills, and I didn’t particularly want to be in a rather uninhabited area, totally lost, in the dark. Luckily, I soon stumbled upon a bit of civilization—at least, a large intersection with a BP station. I walked into the station and asked them how I would get to Nerang, and the attendants told me that it would be really simple to just drive up the highway a couple exits and I’d be there. When I asked them how I would get there without a car, since I didn’t particularly feel like walking down the Pacific Highway, they just gave me a strange look. Apparently people don’t really walk to Nerang or something…

I had actually walked in the opposite direction from Nerang when leaving the tennis club, and while I was taking the road to Nerang, I was taking the extremely long way around. I felt absolutely shattered when I was told this—how was I supposed to get back to Brizzy at all? Luckily, one of the attendants was just finishing her shift and offered to give me a lift to the station, which took a whole 5 minutes. In this period of time, she managed to tell me about how much the Gold Coast transport system sucks as well. I hadn’t noticed. Thank god for her, because I have no clue what I would have done otherwise.

I have to say, I don’t plan on going back to the Gold Coast without someone that owns a car for a very long time, unless I have a foolproof way of getting to wherever I need to go. While it was great exercise, I would have much preferred just hopping on a bus to a central point, like you can in Brisbane, and then finding my way from there, rather than wandering aimlessly and feeling totally helpless. Even a few more stops than simply “Broadbeach Pac Fair” and “Surfer’s Paradise” would do. So, when traveling on Gold Coast transport, I simply say good luck.