We arrived into Brisbane early in the morning, so had lots of time to kill before heading to Surfers Paradise, where our accommodation was booked. Mark had made the comment that our journey was a little bit like the Royal family visiting the colonies after marrying, which I found very amusing. We didn’t quite get the same red carpet welcome though. And can you believe it, that even with 33 tender years behind me, it was the very first time I had been to the Southern Hemisphere! It’s very weird, everyone stands on their heads, and water goes down the plughole the wrong way.
We decided to head into the city centre and have a look around. The first thing I thought when we landed was how orderly and clean everything was, and how sunny and warm. Also, that everyone was very friendly and helpful. I’ll admit I have a phobia of Ozzies; obviously not the ones that I know, who are lovely, but the country as a whole makes me think of arrogance, competitiveness to a ridiculous degree, sexism and not very good senses of humour. It’s always easy to form an opinion of somewhere having never been there of course. I hope I demonstrate in this chapter that, bar one obvious inclusion to my original opinion you will read about shortly, I really enjoyed the people and the country.
The architecture in the city centre reminded me of old US films, the type in a sepia colour with reporters running madly around offices smoking. There are some very beautiful old buildings. But on the whole I found the city quite sterile. It’s probably because it was a Monday morning, so everyone was at work. But I couldn’t really see any life to it, and the more modern architecture wasn’t very creative, more functional. I guess that’s the case in most modern cities. There is a man-made beach though, which is very strange. There’s sand, there’s, well, almost sea, there are lots of people sunbathing and swimming, but there’s no surf. It’s like a big swimming pool, but made to be more fun. We sat and passed a couple of hours there in the sunshine watching everyone splashing around. I couldn’t help thinking that if you don’t like the beach then you would go to a pool to avoid the sand, and if you do like the beach then surely you would go to an actual beach with all the benefits it brings. I couldn’t really understand the thinking behind this kind of hybrid. But Mark pointed out that it’s a safe beach for kids, without the risk of them being swept out to sea. I told him off – surely no self-respecting Kiwi would stick up for the Ozzies?
We grabbed some lunch then headed out to Surfers to find our accommodation. With it officially being our honeymoon we had treated ourselves to a self-catering apartment two blocks away from the beach with a balcony and view, and it certainly delivered, as did the owner who was very funny. He greeted us by telling us that we had probably saved him loads of money, as we had dragged him away from making lots of bids on eBay, unbeknown to his wife who had, quite irresponsibly I felt, left him in charge. This more than made up for the taxi driver we had, who had told me that Australians didn’t like “you poms”, had asked “What’s little brother saying?” when Mark talked about the Rugby World Cup, talked a lot about Gallipoli (yes, not Britain’s finest hour, but not technically my fault), and generally went out of his way to make us feel really welcome. I realised not to pay any attention to his opinion, because when I asked him whether he had travelled much, he said “Yes I have, in Australia, because when you’re born in the best country in the world, why would you want to go anywhere else.” Oh dear.
We planned to do nothing for the next day except chill on the beach and take a walk to the local mall to but some food to cook. But the day dawned not so bright and really quite breezy. So we comforted ourselves with Nandos chicken. Not the most exotic food we’ve had admittedly. It brightened up in the afternoon and we played a bit of frisbee on the beach before braving the Coral Sea and being unceremoniously dunked by many an exciting wave. It’s not called Surfers Paradise for nothing after all. I had about a kilogram of sand in my swimsuit when we left.
We weren’t right in Surfers, we were a little further down the coast at Broadbeach, which was really lovely, and a bit quieter. Everything is like a new built town, with everything built to suit the locals living there. This is a great concept, but completely alien to me. There are lots of little man made canals for all the boats that everyone owns. The new town I picture in the UK is Milton Keynes, and it has no soul to it whatsoever. The town and community centre revolves around a large shopping mall, and that’s pretty much it. But in Australia I admire the way that people have decided what they want their quality of life to be and have set about making it. So many more established countries just put up with what they’ve got.
I did get the impression that it’s a little bit of a nanny state, probably more so than the UK. People told me that you can’t get served in bars if you’re drunk. It’s very strict on non-smoking; you can’t smoke inside any public place, or within 4 metres of an entrance to a public place, and you can’t smoke on beaches. But realistically these are things that encourage a healthier lifestyle, which can only be positive.
We hired a car and headed up to the Sunshine Coast on our last day in Surfers, to go and visit Gemma! Very strange that she was in the same area as us at the same time. She was working in the daytime so we headed to Noosa Bay, which is very beautiful, and has a quaint little town to wander around, as well as a fantastic beach. Again we weren’t massively lucky with the weather, but there was a bar on the beach that we could repair to whenever a shower came over. And we could enjoy the tamer surf in the bay. We kept getting stalked by a lot of seagulls, but managed to keep all our food.
Then we headed to impossible to pronounce Mooloolaba to meet Gemma for dinner and drinks. We got a bottle of wine for our wedding present which was most welcome! And I think because of that I can’t remember what we ate. Probably steak or some kind of meat. By the time we got to Mooloolaba it was pouring with rain and pretty bloody cold. So all this crap about Australia having better weather than the UK blah blah blah, is absolute rubbish. Although, once again, we appeared to have decided to go there when they were having their worst summer in 17 years, or something. I bet they say that every year when they have yet another s*** summer. It was great to gossip with Gemma as if we were back home though, tell her all about the wedding and the travels so far, and hear about everything happening back in Blighty. I miss friends and normal stuff like that so much!
We had a not too tearful goodbye; Gemma isn’t really that emotional, which worked well when we lived together, me being an emotional wreck the majority of the time. And we headed back to Surfers to pack and get ready to head to Sydney in the morning. We got back very late, and we since found out that Mark got a speeding ticket. Naughty boy!