AUSTRALIA – GOLD COAST

OCTOBER 10-13, 2025

We had met Nicole in Turkey last year. We were on the same tour of Gallipoli. She said she was from Australia. We exchanged information and kept in touch, mostly via Facebook. When we got to Sydney I contacted her to find out where she lived. Gold Coast. I said we were heading that way. She took a day off work to show us around and insisted that we stay as her and Dave’s guests in their home.

The first night we went out for fish and chips along the bay. I got the beautiful picture of Surfer’s Paradise skyline, pictured above.

The next day she took us to TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN, where she grew up. She took us to a huge hill where paragliders often take off from. We had a great time watching them run down the hill then gently glide up into the air. There were dozens and dozens of them floating around. Pierre said he would love to try it and even talked to one of the men regarding costs and training. But being a paratrooper, I doubt he would have any problems.

We had a beer at ST. BERNARD HOTEL. It was built in 1881 and remains much the same as it always did.

Two big St. Bernards were sleeping in the foyer.

We took a very short walk into TAMBORINE NATIONAL PARK. A one minute walk into the forest and we were completely immersed in dense forest. There were other places Nicole wanted to take us, so we did not venture too far in.

We stopped at a liquor store so Nicole could buy a certain rum that is only available in that town. There were some bottles of alcohol that I don’t think I would trust.

We then drove back into Gold Coast where she took us to MAIN BEACH – THE SPIT. I think her son used to surf here. It was a quiet beach, known to the locals, but not widely known beyond that. We walked along for a bit, and could see the high rises of Surfer’s Paradise.

SURFER’S PARADISE did not seem like much of a paradise to me. There were a lot of multi-million dollar high rises with high end shops. They were setting up for the Gold Coast 500, and annual car race through the city.

We saw a DUCK BUS. It can go right from a street into the water.

We then drove to the other side of the bay to BURLEIGH HEADS, where we had a light lunch and enjoyed the views. Everywhere we went was extremely windy and we had to really hang onto our hats.

The next day we simply hung around the house getting ourselves organized for the next leg of our journey. Nicole was a wealth of knowledge on where to go and what to see. She is also a history teacher, so we got LOTS of information on the local area as well as Australia in general.

I wanted to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Initially we were going to go up to Cairns, but Nicole said there is just as nice diving at Airlie Beach, and it was half the distance. She gave us a couple of towns to stop in for a break as well as suggestions on where to spend the night, as it was a 1200 km drive and we knew it was too far to make it on one go.

With heavy hearts we said good-bye to our new friends and headed to Airlie Beach, via Hervey Beach and Rockhampton.