Gold Coast: Miami of Australia
Day 10
We took an 11 am flight to leave from Cairns to Gold Coast. Off the airport, we rented a car from Europcar and drove to our hostel. On the streets of Gold Coast, I noticed something very different. Remember how I mentioned that Australia likes to name their words differently? Well, in Australia “Burger King” is called “Hungry Jack’s”. What happened was that the name “Burger King” has already been trademarked by a food shop in Adelaide. As a result, Burger King, partnered up with Jack Cowin (an Australian franchisee), had to select another brand name to represent “Burger King”, hence the birth of “Hungry Jack’s”.
During the day, we explored the city centre of Surfers Paradise, a suburb of Gold Coast. At Surfers Paradise, we went up the Q1, which is a skyscraper in the city. Q1 is 322.5 metres high and it is the tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Though, only 10% of the world’s population lives in the Southern Hemisphere. Just to give you an idea, First Canadian Place is 298.1 metres high, which is only slightly lower than the Q1. Another interesting fact is that the Q1 is purely a residential building.
Yale and I went up to the observation deck of the Q1. When we escalated to the deck, we were surprised to see the city layout of Gold Coast. The entire city comprises of hundreds of canals and waterways. According to Wikipedia, the man-made waterways in Gold Coast are over 260 km long, which are 9 times the length of the canals in Venice. The overall atmosphere of Gold Coast can be described as the Miami of Australia.
Day 11
Next day, we drove to Byron Bay (which is around 2 hours with traffic) from Surfers Paradise. Byron Bay is a popular resort and it is very suitable for surfing. Originally, I was going to attempt my first surf on that beach. Unfortunately, due to traffic, I was unable to enroll the early morning lesson. Nonetheless, I was still able to enjoy the beautiful view of Byron Bay.
My selfie of the beach and a secret photoshoot of Yale.
Unfortunately, on the same day, I had to take a flight at 6:30pm to Sydney. Yale continued his adventure separately in New Zealand. Before our departure, we decided to take a picture at the airport. Coincidently, we realized that our jacket colour matched with our backpack.
