Concorde Hotel Gold Coast Surfers Paradise

We spent the first night wandering around Surfers Paradise and realised we wouldn't want to spend too much longer in the area. It seemed to be the drinking capital for teens and surfers. For the 3 days we spent in Surfers Paradise we spent it outside the area going to Lamington National Park for a few days and Seaworld for a day. Lamington National park...spotted a very large snake in a tree just next to the walking track. Luckily it was still there when we walked back past it! There were som...

Today was time for our final visit to a theme/amusement park for the trip, the 4th individual park we have visited during our 2 week trip. In a bid to save money and enjoy greater flexibility in choosing when to travel we decided to give the regular Surfside bus a try instead of arranging transfers to Movie World as we had done previously. There were so many people at the bus stop that we only got on the 3rd bus that came past, at least they come every 10 minutes or less so it wasn't too bad....

Flying south from Hong Kong was a pleasant experience, featuring a beautiful airborne sunrise, some mediocre movies and a little sleep. The flight made it into Brisbane a tad late but this just helped us get through Customs and Quarantine faster because it meant there was a longer period of time between our flight and the one that had arrived previously. The AQIS and Customs staff must've been bored already because I received a few comments along the lines of "I hope you've declared that anim...

Both Belinda and I struggled getting out of bed early after the evening with Lid and John but we had a transfer to the station to catch so we had no choice. We shoved the remainder of cereal down our throats and stuffed our bags for one last day of fun, making it down to the foyer just as the transfer bus was starting to wonder if we were going to be late. On our last trip the driver was very talkative but in contrast this driver was silent, it was the annoying American that was picked up bef...

We headed off to Surfers Paradise in the hope that the weather would improve and by the time we arrived at surfers it was sunny enough to have lunch on the beach. Surfer's Paradise may only be 2 hours drive from Byron Bay but it might as well be a million miles away. It is basically a mini-Vegas-on-sea with tower block after tower block overlooking the gorgeous Gold coast. It also seemed very popular with Asian tourists for the gambling and most places even had signs in both English and Chine...