My plans for a Saturday morning trip to Surfers were waylaid by Tegan’s suggestion to head to the markets, grab coffee and visit a travel expo. This was probably for the best as the weather, as it has been since I got here, was pretty terrible. At the markets I got a french sweet crepe made by some of the Frenchies that live at WhyNot Street. We wandered the overly commercial Travel Expo only to be stung by a 13 dollar parking fee for the 15mins we were there, and then relaxed at the Three Wise Monkey’s coffee shop.
I started my mission to see the Gold Coast at about 1pm, leaving Tegan to complete her assignments over a mug-a-chino at the coffee shop. Jumping in the car I was once again on the motorway, cruising past other road users on the 70km trip South to Surfers Paradise. (On a side note: Drivers here are just as bad as Perth, however; their road rage is misplaced, and they are overly accommodating to the point of destroying the flow of traffic. The complete opposite to Perth drivers insistence in not allowing over-taking or merging.)
I drove the streets of Surfers, huge residential towers dwarfing my compact car, until I found Surfers Paradise Boulevard. I parked and walked the almost mile long strip of beach that runs almost the complete length of the city. The beach reminded me of Scarborough back in Perth, the golden sand stretching as far as I could see.
As it was still miserable weather I didn’t swim. I was longing for a nice beer and meal in a pub on the beach, but to my amazement I couldn’t find a single decent place. How an entire city can exist by the beach and not have a slew of upmarket beach fronting pubs just flabbergasted me.
I didn’t spend long in Surfers, just enough time to grab a beer and a Red Rooster burger. I did get to see the ridiculous, advertising plastered metermaids that Surfers is so famous for. The girls pimped themselves to me, offering a photo with them for a fee. I gave them one look and informed them I had a whole selection of photos of me with much hotter girls (albeit wearing more clothes) who didn’t ask me for money. They were not amused. I don’t seem to amuse many women.
I left the coast soon after that, walking through an altercation between a dickhead in a Commodore who backed into an Asian family’s Mercedes. A traffic cop was mediating, trying to keep control of a flurry of hand waving, pointing and racial slurs when the bogan fled the scene in a squeal of tires, leaving the car load of mates he had with him at the time standing by the side of the road. Yup: I’m in Queensland alright.
By: simv
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