From 12th-14th July, Evie, Tarsh and I spent three days in the Gold Coast, which is about an hour’s drive south from Brisbane.
On our way down we stopped by The Strawberry Farm in Pimpama for one of its legendary strawberry ice creams. Now I’m more a chocolate girl but this strawberry ice cream is the best that I’ve ever had, yes even better than at Henley Ice Cream, which is somewhere that I rave about to anyone spending time in Warwickshire! The ice cream had actual strawberry bits in it, which is always good, and you also get whipped cream and fresh strawberries with – bonus!
The legendary ice cream. Photo taken by me.
The place we stayed at in the Gold Coast was The Moroccan which gifted us this wonderful view:
The view of the beach from our balcony. Photo taken by me.
That night we went out to a favourite restaurant of Evie and Tarsh’s called Mario’s, which was just a short drive from where we were staying. The food was absolutely delicious as was the atmosphere in the restaurant. We had a laugh with our waiter, Rob, who originally hailed from Essex. My favourite bit was the dessert/pudding: profiteroles with Cointreau cream – something I know Mum would really love!
The next morning was an early start as we went out to spend the day at Dreamworld which is this great themepark in the Gold Coast famed for its “Big Six” Thrill Rides. Tarsh, Evie and I did four of them: The Giant Drop, Tower of Terror, The Claw and Wipeout. We did the Tower of Terror and The Claw more than once as they were out favourites. I have no idea why but The Claw kept making Tarsh and I giggle, much to the amusement of Evie who was sat between us when we went on it!
As we were tired after Dreamworld we didn’t go far for dinner, just to the Coffee Club (yes, there again), where I had a lovely rump steak for $10, can’t complain about that!
The following day was decided as Sports Day, where the three of us would take part in three events: Tenpin bowling with the bumpers up, tenpin bowling without bumpers and mini golf.
So the results were:
Tenpin with bumpers
1. Tarsh
2. Evie
3. Me
Tenpin without bumpers
1. Tarsh
2. Me
3. Evie
Mini Golf
1. Evie
2. Tarsh
3. Me
So yeah, I didn’t do overly well. Am still shocked that I managed to do better without bumpers than with though!
We ended our time in the Gold Coast with a lovely meal at the Hard Rock Cafe where we all left feeling extremely full and with souvenir glasses from our cock/mocktails. We walked it off in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum which was full of weird and wonderful things like ancient implements of torture, the process behind creating a shrunken head and loads more. It was really interesting the things that had been collected and I especially liked the collection of really small things, especially the violin.
On our way back up to Brisbane we couldn’t help but stop off at The Strawberry Farm again, it was too good not to!
And so to the end of the first part of my Brisbane adventure, as I’ll be up again later this month visiting family.
Next stop in the blog series is Byron Bay (as I’m catching up big time on all of my notes!)
