We wanted to go on a trip for my birthday this year as it was on a Sunday. My initial choice was Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef. Since the flights were very costly, we had to change our destination to the Gold Coast. I heard about Gold Coast from my friends who had been there during Easter long weekend. They drove from Sydney, which takes around 8-9 hours one way and we felt that it would be tough to drive that long, for a 3 day trip and booked our flight tickets.

We planned our trip for 3 days and 2 nights, but we were clueless on what can be done there in those three days. Just a night before our trip, we started searching on google for the major attractions etc, which is when we found many theme parks like Dream world, sea world, movie world etc, most of them are targeted for children and families. For once, we felt out of place thinking that it was a bad choice for a couple to go there. At the end of our research, we just found a couple of things to do. We started our trip without much expectation and considered it as a leisure trip.

Day 1 – Sydney to Gold coast

We woke up early in the morning and reached airport only to find out that our flight got cancelled due to some operational reasons. The next available flight offered was after 3 hours. We felt more disappointed on hearing that as our first half of the day got wasted in the airport. We were more surprised on how our first domestic flight in Australia got cancelled and wondered if it is a common scenario here, as we never faced this issue in India.

We got a 8$ inconvenience coupon to buy breakfast, with which we hardly got anything in the airport other than coffee and hot chocolate. After 3hrs of long wait, we caught our flight to the Gold Coast.

Our flight direction was towards north and the takeoff views looked different from the previous NZ flight. We got to see the view of beautiful blue northern beaches and the Manly wharf.

Though I was a bit sleepy, I couldn’t sleep on the flight missing the amazing views below. We flew past the Port Stephens area and the Stockton sand dunes from our last trip were clearly visible 🙂 I could easily spot it from its shape as it was very fresh in my memory.

We took a rental car from the airport and headed to our hotel facing broad beach. We booked a ocean view room and it was an ocean view room with an obstruction though, nevertheless we felt happy that we have some good view and the point that we are that close to the beach made me feel very happy 🙂 It felt tough to resist ourselves to not get into the water with beach in-front of us.

We had to head outside first in search of lunch. On this trip, we decided to have all our meals outside, and we were determined on not to repeat a single cuisine in 3 days. Luckily, there were many restaurants near our hotel in a walking distance. Our first lunch was at an Italian restaurant (Mario’s), the pizza there was super yummy 🙂

We jumped into the beach after our late lunch and the breeze started getting colder was it was closer to sunset time. The water also felt cold was the sun started setting down. We couldn’t spend much time there and decided to come back the next day in the afternoon, when it was still sunny. Having nothing much to do in the evening after sunset, we drove around the place to get a sense of the city and the areas there. There was a good marine drive along the beach which took us to Surfer’s paradise where huge tall buildings are found (the most happening place of Gold Coast). We continued our drive to realize that it was a very small place, developed along the coast.

My hubby meanwhile booked a hot air balloon (the long awaited item on my bucket list) for my birthday tomorrow morning for the sunrise :))))

We chose an Indian restaurant(Manihani) near Broadbeach for dinner, which was also good. As we walked back to our hotel, we observed some light in the sky similar to a street light bulb. Only when we came near our hotel, we realized that it was moon glowing like a bulb on the water. We felt amazed looking at the moon over the sea in bright orange color 🙂 It almost felt like watching sunrise, just that the surroundings looked darker.

Though the day started bad, the bright moon got back our happiness by the end of the day 🙂

Day 2: On the top of Gold coast

Happy Birthday Alekhya.. 🙂

This feels special to wish myself a very happy birthday in my post. I was more than happy to wake up early today not because it was my birthday, but because I was getting on a hot air balloon. We booked our ride with Go Ballooning team and they picked us up from our hotel by 5:20am. From there, they drove us to a place outside of Gold coast where we could see a couple of balloons gearing up for the ride.

Ours was a bigger balloon and pink in color, getting ready to fly up. While the balloon was being prepared, we were made into four groups(total 24), based on our weight to balance the balloon.

Surprisingly, ours was the first one to go up though the other two were ready for a while. There was no takeoff jerk felt on the balloon, it slowly took off from the ground into the sky 🙂

The views of the city looked stunning in the dawn with the clouds, sea and water ways clearly visible 🙂 For someone who is new to the place, it feels like the water from the sea entered the city and flooded it 😀 Everything looked crystal clear from the top!

We were close to sunrise and were moving up and down in the middle. Whenever the fire blows up in the middle, the balloon went up and gradually it came down and there were ropes to steer the direction. Our pilot guided us telling the details of the places around.

We just went down close to sunrise by few seconds and the sun rose up the buildings pretty quickly. It was a lovely sight to watch 🙂

We could watch the other two balloons also moving across the sky.

After spending around an hour in the sky, we reached the ground in a damp farm land, covered with mist. We were provided with shoe covers, before the start of our journey anticipating the muddy landing. During landing, we are supposed to sit and hold to balance the weight down.

The landing was also pretty smooth, hardly felt any impact. We took some photos there with the balloon and later we were dropped at our hotel.

It was a different flying experience all together and the experience changes based on the place and I could understand why Cappadocia hot air balloon is famous. I feel that it was an ideal way to explore the unreachable parts of any place.

We headed out to Broadbeach in the afternoon and then to the SkyPoint Observation deck. It is located on top of the iconic Q1 Building, one of the world’s tallest residential towers and takes us to the highest point above the Gold Coast. The deck is situated on 77th floor and there was an alternate option to climb up from there to the top (Skyclimb). We simply chose the observation deck entry for 23 AUD on Experience Oz (got an offer there).

The elevator was super quick and took only 42 seconds to reach the 77th floor. Skypoint viewing deck was entirely indoors so the view and any photography was through the glass windows. From the deck, we got to view complete 360 degree views from the surf to the hinterland and beyond. The endless coast line was an amazing treat to watch. I felt that this was something special in Gold Coast, the beaches in Sydney are typically small in size enclosed in between the hilly rocks.

There were pointers installed around the deck with directions of the famous places and the details about it.

We stayed there to watch sunset and then came out to drive and explore the other side of the Gold Coast. Although we decided not to go to any theme park, we wanted to take a look at those from outside and check that part of the town. The theme parks looked interesting from outside with several high rides. We had dinner at a Turkish restaurant near our hotel and took rest for the day. What an amazing day, one of my best birthdays!

Day 3: Springbrook National Park

We had an ample time today with our return flight in the night. So, we decided to check out our hotel and explore the Springbrook National Park till afternoon. We had couple of options to discover hinterland: 1. Mt. Tamborine(skywalk) and 2. Springbrook National Park. We chose Springbrook to experience its ancient rainforests and Natural bridge.

Our first trek was to Natural Bridge Arch, which takes around 1hr round trip. The trees looked huge and different from what we have seen earlier.

A circuit track took us through the forest, across Cave Creek and into the arched cave. The rock formation looked extremely picturesque, formed by the force of the waterfall over the basalt cave. At night the cave is illuminated by thousands of glow-worm’s tiny green lights.

From the natural bridge, we headed to the main entrance of Springbrook national park where the trek to Purling Brook Falls started.

The trail to the base of Purling Brook Falls is 4kms return and takes around 2 hours to complete. We were completely geared up for our trek and this was considered relatively difficult one compared to the previous trek as it is a bit steep.

For us to start off, we got a chance to look at the beautiful falls from the top, luring us to walk down to its base 🙂 Though we were worried looking at its height, we were determined to complete this trek.

This trail was not paved and it is a bit uneven at times, but it felt good walking in between a variety of flora.

After an hour trek down, we reached the base of the water fall and it looked stunning with a rainbow in between :). The waterfall felt like dancing water changing its directions with the wind.

We relaxed there for a while and continued our journey up the hill, on a different circular route.

Can trees scare you? I guess yes, with the trees like the one below looking like monsters!

We were completely tired and hungry with back to back trails. We started back to the city from there in search of lunch. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and drove to Burleigh Head, southern suburb of the Gold Coast.

The views from this place were amazing, we spent some relaxing time there on the beach side. It felt fascinating to spot few whales, coming out for breathing far in the ocean, from this beach. We never thought we could spot whales that easily from the shore. Of course, we couldn’t watch them as close as we could in our last trip to Port Stephens. But still ,we never thought that we could see whales from the shore on our own. These were the bonus part of our trip 😀

Having not much time left the day, we just drove to Coolangatta beach near airport for sunset.

We returned our car back and took our flight back to Sydney, luckily it was on time.

Gold Coast felt like a perfect combination of beaches and national parks, both at its best. Somehow we felt so much connected to the place by the end of the trip and it felt as if we were locals roaming the streets. When we initially started our journey to the Gold Coast, we were clueless, but by the end of the trip, we understood why this place is a popular holiday destination in Australia. There was something for everyone in the place. It was a revelation!