My last day at the Gold Coast. Who said parting is bitter sweet? It’s just bitter!

The Gold Coast has been really good to me - and Sandra has been phenomenally good to me - but most of all, God is good. Truly, almost everything in the Gold Coast has been a spiritual experience - nature at it’s best, the way I’m sure, God intended it, be they rainforests or beaches, people cheerful or the weather great.

Every morning I’d awake & see this “Waterway Cruises” boat pass Sandra’s home as they did the “Millionaire Tour” - and it gave me a childish kick to stand there & wave to the people on the cruise! There I was, the (very pseudo) millionaire, who was very thrilled when they waved back

My flight to Sydney wasn’t until 9pm though, so I thought I’d get some stuff done today too. First up though, brunch! And, among other things, I polished off a good plate of Octopus! Yummmy!

My appetite thus satiated, I headed down to the Gold Coast Seaway, which I found out “is on the northernmost tip of the mainland beaches. Across the channel is South Stradbroke Island which extends a further 22km (13 miles) The seaway was built in 1986 to stablise what was a very dangerous bar, and incorporates the worlds 1st permanent sand bypass system” (cf pano.com.au)

I particularly liked the Seaway because it exemplified Gold Coast weather (as I see it) to a T. As long as it’s not windy, the sun at the Gold Coast makes it terribly hot - this mumbai girl couldn’t bear the heat (perhaps because I’m very used to the air-con). I actually went around the Gold Coast quite a bit with an umbrella much to most people’s amusement! Of course, when it’s windy, even if you’re completely in the sun, you may feel quite pleasant, even chill.

Before you get onto the actual Seaway, it’s hot in the beachy area that precedes. There were also lots of sailboats out & plenty folks trying their luck at fishing at this end.

I went from this the hot Gold Coast sun at the start of the Seaway (see the long passage that literary goes into the sea!)…

The seaway is flanked by rocks, and trust me when I say, despite what they may look like in these pics, they were Large!!

I finally reached the other end, where there’s a lighthouse for obvious reasons. The salty sprayed winds make it very cold & wet at this end of the Seaway:

See the pics above & imagine what it was like, Huge loud waves, bashing themselves into these huge rocks! I imagine that during a storm this place will such you into the sea - like Scarlet, I too was nearly Gone with the Wind…

There is also a parallel path built some distance away which is higher & more suitable for fishing, which I believe is very popular here.

It was towards the beginning of this parallel path that I saw many surfers & swimmers doing their thing in the waters despite huge “Not safe for swimming” boards put up everywhere!

I also got my favorite pic of the trip so far off the beach at the near end of the seaway:

Yes, ever the narcisstic, I’m in it

Since time was still on my side, decided to visit one more place - this time the Mariner’s Cove. This cove is just off the Marina Mirage, where we had danced away just the previous night.

Someone more into ships would have gone mad here - even I, a total idiot when it comes to these things - was floored by the beautiful boats (ships? yatchs? whatever, they were all gorgeous). There were dozens & dozens & dozens of them all over in separate (parking?) lanes-ish sort of thingies. Very cool.

I had this sudden urge to run down one of them with a gun chasing some bad guy down, who was romancing a very sexy hooker with some champagne on his private yatch. Ok, fine I’ll admit I watch too much TV sometimes. And I didn’t act on my urge, so there.

The place also looks fabulous in the night time - didn’t get pics last night, so took this off the planner/developers website. Later found out that these are the same guys who planned out Sahara India Pariwar’s Amby Valley!

Finally had to head back home & get ready to get to the airport which is at Coolangatta - and though officially called the “Gold Coast Airport” it is still refered to “Coolangatta Airport” which is an Aboriginal word meaning “Place of Good View” - which I think could be used for a multitude of places on the Gold Coast.

I had a flight on Jet Star, Qantas’ internal airline & I reached Sydney peacefully, despite being seated next to a Sri-Lankan guy who was trying to chat me up - I just pretended to fall asleep & pretty soon, I was! (a feat which my mum attest to, comes very easily to me).

I was a tad worried that when I reached Sydney it would be cold (brrr??) but I’m happy to say I didn’t feel anything of the kind. Didn’t even put on the jacket I had carried with me just in case. Got picked up at the airport by Sim & Nick (if you’ve been following my travel blog, you’ll remember them from my fabulous Goan holiday). I was promptly fed a nice hot meal & tucked into bed.

Seriously, this is life! Goodbye Gold Coast, hello Sydney!

Today headed down into Burleigh Heads. I’ve been told that it’s one of the most popular holiday destinations in the Gold Coast - mainly because it has one of the best beaches for surfing.

You can’t make out from the pic above but actually we were at a great height - it makes for a spectacular view of the entire beach! In fact it seemed that many people were there only to hang out up above, take in the view & enjoy the peace & quite - some had come with picnic baskets, others with study books.

As for me, I decided to do another “Bush Walk” this time at the Burleigh’s National Park - which is actually a series of long walks overlooking the ocean.

I was walking behind some “surfies” (yep, apparently that’s what most of the locals ’round here call ‘em) down the long path closest to the ocean, which was about 2.6 kilometers long. It kinda surprised (scared?) me that suddenly they decided to get off the path & climb down all the rocks & get into the ocean!!

I took the regular route however It had safe paths & was lined with a particular variety of trees (unfortunately I didn’t get a name) some of them were upright, others, well! I was also constantly on the lookout for wildlife - which apparently they have a lot of - but unfortunately I saw nothing. Except for some (very beautiful) butterflies which I discovered are very difficult to get photographs of since they’re constantly fluttering about the place.

As I neared the end of the walk (or so I thought at the time), I got another spectular view of the Tallebudgera Creek & Palm beach which are on other end.

Actually, in reality, my walk wasn’t over. I now went through a very surreal bit of nature - everything was seemingly not alive & yet very alternately alive - the feeling I got was like I was in the Lord of the Rings & one of those big trees were going to bend down & swoop me up any second.

I did finally reach the other end and took in the lovely sights - among them, this man fishing just off the shore! Wonder if he caught anything?!

After getting back to Burleigh’s, I rested a bit in the cool shade (I don’t need a tan like most of the people who come here!) until we finally decided to go back.

At this point let me mention that Sandra drives a Mercedes Sports Convertible! This poor girl enjoyed the feeling of sitting in one, back down (of course!) & driving through the Gold Coast… very very nice!

Headed for lunch to the Mandarin Court (somewhere between Miami & Mermaid), where we had an excellent selection of Yum Cha - including the delicacy ‘Chicken Feet’. Yep.

I rested a while more at home before heading into Surfers to explore the Night Markets (which are held Wednesday and Friday evenings approx. betweeb 5:30pm & 10:00pm). Incidentally, I took these pics at around 6pm - when it’s already pretty dark outside! The market, which is made up of “more than 70 market stalls stretching over half a kilometre of beachfront promenade” are located along the Esplanade.

I checked out the entire market - there seemed to be mostly handmade stuff - some of them very exquisite - like accessories, artwork, homeware, jewellery, recording memorabilia (I was floored at this stall but everything was very expensive), nostalgic Gold Coast photographs, children’s costumes and lots of other stuff.

I didn’t spent too much time at the Night Market as I had to head home - it was Friday Night & we were going clubbing!!

First up we headed to the German Club, which was very quaint & all done up in wood. I especially loved the chandelier which was wooden & had little men & women all over it. Unfortunately they were having a Singles Night that night - and it was ages 65+, lol, like Ros put it, I definetely wasn’t gonna find a man there - not that I was looking anyway. We did have a nice time anyway & some Hungarian Goulash for dins there. We didn’t stay for too long - though it was long enough! - and I realised (a) the people, aged 65+, who were there were really happening, they all seemed in the mood to pick up new partners & meet new people, very cool for that age, so alive! (b) I’d be really depressed if I had to do this every Friday night…

Fortunately we headed over to the Marina Mirage (Southport Broadwater) from there. Looking at the posh exteriors itself (lit up sails all open to the night light) I was relieved. Even more so when we reached ‘Saks‘ (yes of course Sakshi dear I thought of you!) which was a trendy place that reminded me of something between a Zenzi & a Seijo. No teenyboppers, people more my age & a little older, good music & though some were ozzie casuals, most were very fashionably dressed. Enjoyed it & danced away until we were tired.

Dropped into the ‘Pallazo Versace‘ hotel (just next door) before heading home just to have a look - there was a (super sexy) Ferrari right outside. The hotel was beautiful! (pic below off google) & Here’s more through Wiki:

All cutlery and china in the hotel is Versace. Framed photographic work from Gianni and Donatella’s collection line the hotel’s corridors. The rooms are furnished with a special range designed exclusively for the hotel by the House of Versace in Milan. The bathroom sinks are each made from one piece of marble, and the hotel has 28 pools. Five Italian mosaic tilers, with an average age of 75 years, built the hotel’s driveway in six weeks. Each tiler originated from a different region of Italy, collecting the stones used from their own local area.

And naturally, there was this very fine Versace mosaic among them:

A long day & a long night & I was definetely going to sleep in on Saturday morning!

No major post today because all I did was “Be”.

I was one of “them” today. One of those who didn’t look at the time all the time. Heck, I had no watch, no cell, not even a clock.

So I did what any sensible one of “them” do on glorious days like this. I abandoned my camera (yes, even that does happen sometimes) & I headed to the beach.

Right into the water.

Between the flags of course. In full sight of the lifeguards of course. Until the currents were too strong & threatened to pull me in - only then did I head back home.

My senses were filled up (there goes John Denver again in my head) -
sight (ah the beach is simply glorious, see the previous post pictures if you don’t believe me),
sound (the sea-gulls, the waves, the wind),
smell (the fresh air),
touch (the water against my skin, the sand beneath me)
& even taste (well, I did taste the salty water once or twice when a big wave downed me!).

Even my sixth sense tingled as I experienced the seemingly supernatural beauty of the place. A gift to us humans indeed.

On a completely other note - don’t ask me how - but I now know what it feels to act in a ‘Wild Wild West’ movie

Got up really nice & late and ate a good brunch (waay too late for breakfast!). My big “POA” for the day consisted of going to the beach with Aki. Yes hard work, but someone’s gotta do it!

When we got there we realized that this indeed was “the life”!! This place is called “Surfer’s Paradise” and Paradise it is, even to non-surfers.

Talking about surfing though, I caught a group of novices being taught surfing –interesting stuff! Also honed my voyeuristic skills by “observing” a group of guys playing “footy” on the beach!

And since Baywatch was born on Australian beaches – I thought it was only fitting that I spend some time with the lifeguards. With purely touristy intentions, of course. Also saw some guys doing what is called “Sand Art” – in the pic they’re building a “fire spouting dinosaur”! It was still in initial stages but could already make out that it was very good stuff!

Met a nice Canadian girl – Karinne – who spent some time with us on the beach – three pretty single girls hanging out on a beautiful beach – how lovely is that image?! Karinne also invited us to go out to a night club with her since tonight was a special ladies night. However since neither Aki nor I wanted to go, we passed that one up.

Aki & I spent the better part of the day on the beach – and I got some great pics – I especially like these ones, of our shadows (!!) and of our footprints in the sands (which were incidentally, gloriously white!)

After that we headed into Surfer’s Paradise to do some shopping (how perfect was this day turning out?!). There were plenty of malls & cafes all around – even saw the Hard Rock Café, Surfers Paradise (& missed the folks back home for a split second).

The main part of Surfer’s Paradise ( 2 minutes from the beach) is made up of high rise building (though not too many of them) – one of buildings - called the ‘Q1‘ - I found out is – the highest residential building in the world! The people here – like I’m told in the rest of Australia – are very laid back – they walk the streets as if time means nothing. Clothes are optional & surf boards are common accessories. Which is not a problem for me

Finally headed back to Sandra’s place – which is heaven in itself – originally decided to have a dip in her pool but then changed my mind since the water was too cold (have now decided to go back to the beach tomorrow). In the meanwhile we watched the sun set from Sandra’s private jetty – wonderful!

In the night, met the wonderful, beautiful and very alive Maggie, who’s Chinese (yes, an Asian day indeed!) and a close friend of Sandra’s. First Maggie & Sandra cooked us a wonderful meal.

After dinner, we all headed down to “Club Cheetah” (which was actually Sandra’s living room turned into a temp disco). Maggie would put Shakira to shame with her *amazing* belly dancing!! We all had a wonderful night dancing away to loud belly dancing music!!!

Today, Sandra (who I’m staying with) drove Aki (cute Japanese) & me out of the Gold Coast into the mountains!

First stop was Hinze Dam. Though it was nice enough (beautiful views et all) I was not really too impressed.

From there it was off to the Rainforests! I was so excited! It’s the first time I would see a rainforest – and there’s just 0.3% of them left in the world.

Before we reached though, we had to go through Numinbah Valley - beautiful country side, lots of greenery, many glorious farms - one such one was “Coorumbong” - which means “water running over stones”. This lovely girl Rachel who was there (doing I presume some very McLeod’s Daughters-esq work) even let me sit on her motored-thingie!! All around were innumerable cows & horses, lovely!

We went all the way to rainforest at “Natural Bridge”. The rainforest here was really beautiful. The first thing that strikes you as you walk into them is that they’re sooo cool compared to the weather outside the forest.

This particular place also has a beautiful waterfall which has created an arch out of the rock forming a bridge looking like rock – natural bridge. We walked a beautiful path all along the rainforest in a way that we first saw the waterfall from above …

… until we finally ended up under the rocks beneath the fall!! I also met and spoke with a man who was measuring the height of the rock under the waterfall to find out if it was moving lower over the years. Fyi, it isn’t!

I was very impressed with the sheer height of most of the trees and the wonderful smell of the damp earth all around us. The entire place is very well taken care of (like most things around here!) there were good paths to walk on, making sure that the rainforests are not damaged by the tourist, there were signs all over making the experience an educational one as well. The last of pics below, for example, had what are called “Stag Horns” on them - if you look at the tree you’ll understand why!

By this time I was pretty tired – we did do a lot of walking – but Sandra was all gung-ho about seeing yet another rainforest, this one on another mountain (about 40 kilometers from the Gold Coast) called “Springbrooke”.

Natural Bridge was cool – Springbrooke was unbelievably COLD…. (almost 10 degrees) when compared to the sunny weather outside the rainforest **brrrrr**. Sandra had earlier warned Aki & me about the cold before hand & we had both taken jackets but it still was ridiculously cold.

The walk at Springbrooke was comparatively very short from the entrance to “The Best of all Lookouts” which because of the sheer height (we were on top of a mountain) coupled by the fact it was raining mildly – showed us nothing at all. We looked out from “The Best of all Lookouts” and all we saw was white – the clouds beneath us - you can even make out from the pics that we were walking in the clouds.

It was a little sad considering we had driven a long way – but the rainforest made up for it – this one was seemingly more natural than the previous one (no man-made side railings) and we also saw a Antartic Beechwhich still looks strong & happening - it’s stunning to take in the fact that these trees apparently date back something like 50 million years!! More on these trees here.

It’s very humbling to think that many of these trees we saw today have been around since the time dinosaurs walked the earth! I had actually looked up & imagined dinosaurs looming tall above the already tall trees or swooping through the tree branches. History indeed!

Before we went back home (it was really late in the day) - I needed to buy a European to Australian adapter for my camera & cell phone chargers. Found one at an electrical store X. Unfortunately it was such that I could only use it for my camera. Proceeded to another store nearby, Y.

They too had only the one adapter & I thought I might as well pick it – unlike the other store though (where I saw it cost $4.95), this one costs $9.95! I told that the salesman this & he came back & told me that I could have it for $7.70 – I still didn’t want to pay so much extra & since the other store was only little down the block I decided to go back there.

When I did go back there I found it did cost what I thought it did – but then the salesman, a cute young Ozzie guy called Eugene, said – “No this is not what you want” (I was looking at the price of something else) & he handed me another adapter (the right one) costing $10.95. So I told him that store Y told me $7.70 – and he said he’d go check & he finally told me he’d give to me at that price. He finally charged me only $6.95 for it! The girl who was the cashier told me in front of him

“He’s only doing this because you’re a pretty girl, I’ve never seen him doing this for anyone before”.

A good end to a good first day?

Almost, because we then had a most delightful almost picnic-esq meal sitting by the pool off the river.

It’s still not too late in the day & I’ve decided to now sit with my dear friend Suketu Mehta & read about the Maximum City I was in just a day ago.

** Though I didn’t take any photographs (due to lack of a charger) Aki got enough for the both of us, so I’ll add pictures to this post tomorrow.

Finally reached the Gold Coast! It’s been a crazy last couple of hours, not even sure exactly how long it’s been. When I initially went through check in, found out that I was carrying luggage weighing 40 kilos!! And 20 of those kilos were undoubtedly only from all the gifts I was carrying.

So back out I went dumped out about 15 kilos worth of stuff into my parent’s car, in the bargain dropping off my cosmetics/toiletry case as well. Well.

The flight from Mumbai to Sydney was peaceful. I had a window seat next to a woman who somehow managed to sleep almost the entire way – and it was a 12 hour flight!!

The Qantas in-flight entertainment system is excellent & I had a large variety of movies to watch – and watch I did; Borat “Make Study of America for Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakistan”, Stranger than Fiction” and “The Interpreter”.

Sydney airport was peaceful enough, walked through Customs, who told me it would be fine if I then left a bag off at a Baggage Storage area. Incidentally the Qantas ground staff in Mumbai insisted I couldn’t do it – why they argue without knowing is beyond me! – my advice is always check with a couple of people if your common sense is telling you something other than what you’re hearing.

From there I proceeded to the Domestic airport. Talked to a nice Indian couple from Delhi who were off to honeymoon in Brisbane. On my flight to Brisbane (unlike the earlier flight) sat next to a very sweet pyt from Brisbane who happily chatted with me almost the whole flight.

From there it was off to the Gold Coast via mini-van (was picked up by one of those placard holding guys standing outside the airport).

When we approached the Gold Coast all I could see was homes & more homes and somehow no people and hardly anything happening all around me. I suddenly had a painful flashback of a holiday I had in Goa in non-tourist season where there was nothing going on at all the whole time.

Entering Surfer’s Paradise though I saw a couple of high rise buildings & literally went *Phew*. Re-discovered I’m such a city girl!

I was, as you can imagine, ridiculously tired by this stage. However when I reached the house I’m staying at for the next week, all my energy automatically reappeared!

The color that dominates most of the house is cream; the walls, (most of) the furniture and the flooring. It’s décor is intentionally sparse and has a feeling of space. The best part of course is that it’s bang on the Nerang River (even has a jetty going out onto the river) and even has an outdoor pool that overlooks the river - simply breath-taking, simply wonderful.

My room is equally wonderful and I’m happy now to just go & get some shut eye.

(Click on any pic to enlarge)

Continuing my series on Churches of Goa, on & off the beaten track, I present to you St. Hyacinthi Church. This beautiful church is on the island of St.Jacinto (Saõ Jacinto) in Chicalim which 7 kms from Vasco and is a comparitively lesser known church in Goa.

The “island” actually has a looong road through which one can access the church. This road apparently sometimes gets submerged at high tide and also during the monsoons cutting the church off from civilisation.

Locals will swear that the name of the church is not St. Hyacinthi (despite a large blue board on the church proclaiming it to be such!) and instead call it St. Jacinto Church.

The view from this church island is simply divine. I know I got some of my favorite pics from this trip on this island.

(click to enlarge)

That should be in less than 3 weeks time & will be probably gone for a month or so. Looking fwd to posting regularly from there!