Out and About: The Gold Coast

All that glitters is not gold.

Certainly not when it comes to the great shining cubic zirconia in the Gold Coast crown, Surfers Paradise. I do not believe that the gaudy mess of high rise buildings, souvenir stores and dingy shopping malls that hug the endless but well populated beach is any longer the Paradise of many surfers. Never the less, on our little sojourn last week, Miss Pipstar and I found there a temporary Paradise of our own. Our luxury girl’s un-weekend was dedicated to self-indulgence at every turn with plenty of sunshine and girly chatter.

Lovely highlights included:

• Endless blue sky, perfect temperatures and minimum wind.
• Hours dozing on the beach or by the hotel pool with books slumped on chests.
• Large and delicious over priced meals eaten with impressive appetites and finished only when the discomfort of being over fed set in, unencumbered by reason or guilt. (Nothing fancy or exotic. We felt like fish ‘n chips, Chinese and hamburgers, so we had fish ‘n chips, Chinese and hamburgers.)
• My lovely new green rubber thongs (footwear, not underwear).
• Sharing fruit and yoghurt for breakfast on the beach with someone else who really does enjoy having fruit and yoghurt for breakfast.
• Sleeping while we should have been at work.
• Cocktails while we should have been sleeping.
• Making pals with the owner of a cocktail bar ensuring a night of priceless pricey drinks for free.

"Funny"(?!) highlights included:

• Missing our flight up due to a 2 minute discrepancy between Pipstar’s and Jetstar’s timepieces and due to the now unpopular airline’s badly applied check-in policy.
• “Ocean Views” admired from our balcony only with some clever neck craning.
• Enormous and deafening influx of potbellied, hairy, topless bikers and their potbellied, scary, shiny bikes for a Harley Davidson blare-fest.
• Brief nude sneak around hotel, with teeny towels for modesty, looking for a spare key to get our keys out of the locked locker room after our sauna.
• Suffering a case of “Influenza” to top all previous cases of “influenza” after serious run-ins with Sangria, Cosmopolitans, Lime Caprioscas, Black Widows, Grasshoppers, Jagermeister shots, Frangelico and Malibu the night before.
• Missing pedicure and manicure due to afore mentioned “influenza”.
• Checking out of hotel with it’s luxurious plumbing to spend three quarters of our lives on a jerky bus to the airport while nursing afore mentioned “influenza”.
• Managing bouts of nausea (flu) while sitting through the 20 minute delay caused by a nervous flyer being dropped back at terminal after taxiing out ready to take off. Then further 35 minute delay while they took all our bags off to find hers.

(For the information of interested parties: No more than two rows of knitting were completed while away.)

Big smiling thanks to Miss Pipstar, without who’s charming and much-appreciated company, this blissful and relaxing trip would have been instead merely a time-killing exercise in tourist hell. XXOO

(Grumbled no-thanks to Jetstar for their service and winning attitude.)