Day 6 – Gold Coast (Sunrise)

(Photo Taken: 5:30am Sunrise at Gold Coast, Australia – Meijie, Tracy and I woke up at 5am to catch this year’s longest/slowest lunar eclipse. In the end, we were more intrigued by the golden sunrise than the bloody red moon.)

Day 5 – Gold Coast (An Unforgettable Wild Bird Day)

After spending 5 good days on the road with my son, I discovered so many good things about him. Elkan is a very sensible and doting son. He is full of love, surprises, sensitivity, humor and pranks – a perfect boyfriend/combo for any girl out there.

Our father-&-son bonding grows stronger by the day. He chatted to me like a little adult. I thought he was pretty mature for his age. I brought him to the toy shop today and wanted to get him a cheap video-camera. Just before I was about to make payment, he pulled me aside and said he has another camera back home. He doesn’t need an additional one. I was surprised cos’ all kids love new toys. When I told Felicia about this, she told me Elkan knows the money he spent came from the long hours we spent at work. He doesn’t like being alone at home and wants us to spend more time with him. He thinks if he spends lesser, we can make lesser money so we have more time to be with him.

At this tender age of 6, Elkan is a wonder boy. He is my joy, my “happy-power” and my pride. I am happy that I managed to get away from work for 10 good days out here in the outback with him. Afterall, I promised him a vacation of adventures. I hope he remembers every moment we spend together. (If he can’t recall the details, that is fine cos I left him a blog of happy photos and memories of our lives. To me, these worth much more than hand-down heirlooms.)

This is going to be quite a long blog with lots of photos and activities. Cos’ today is a very special day for me. It is my birthday. Many thanks to Felicia, Tracy and Meijie – they planned a pretty wild “bird-day” party for me. (Yes, you can take that literally!)

We will be spending 5 days in Gold Coast and we planned a “perfect travel itinerary” for Elkan and ourselves.

Day 1 – CITY LIFE – Shopping and Beach along Surfers Paradise
Day 2 – FUN RIDES – Theme Park (Movie World) + Night Tour in the Forest (Glow Worms and Stars Observatory)
Day 3 – NATURE – Wildlife, Forest and Mountains (Tamborine Mountains, Lamington National Park)
Day 4 – SEA – Watching WilSunrise + Whales Watching
Day 5 – ADRENALINE – Sky Diving, Bungee Jumping, Shark Caged Diving, Jet-Sking

Today is our 3rd day in Gold Coast. We will be heading up into the mountains. We started the day early at 8am. Greeting us at our hotel’s lobby was this cool-looking dude (Darran) and his powerful land rover. Awesome! This is exactly what we need for a perfect adventure! A powerful 4-wheel drive through those rocky terrains!

In no time, we hit the dirt roads. Humps after humps, the kid and adults were screaming (with joy) in the car. The ride in the land rover was 10 times more exciting than any mechanical rides we did in Movie World! Darran was super-entertaining and funny (and he made us feel really safe and comfort inside his car). At one point, the car was tilting at 40-degree!. The next moment, we sped across a small stream, created a big “Angel Splash”. What a joyride!

Here are my Top 6 favorite moments:

NUMBER 1 – GALLERY WALK
45km inland from the coast, there is a big community of 6,000 people living up on the Tamborine Mountain. “Gallery Walk” is an colourful suburb (it is the Art & Craft centre of South-East Queensland) where there are lots of interesting shops selling paintings, sculptures, ceramics, porcelain, glass, jewellery, woodwork, fabrics and toys.

NUMBER 2 –TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
Queensland’s first national park in 1908 – The Tamborine Mountain National Park offers visitors some wonderful walks in a beautiful unspoiled environment. On entering the rainforest in Tamborine National Park, we took a short gentle 1.5km hike (30 minutes) and headed down to Curtis Falls.

Along our trail, Darran showed us a few exotic (but dangerous) Australian plants – plants that have razor-sharp leaves, plants that have leaves that sting, trees with strangling vines and giant trees with legs and “things” hanging between the legs. Of course, I cannot remember all their real names. Darran gave them interesting nicknames (like the “Big Boy”, the “Koala’s Jacuzzi” and the “Japanese Koala”). The “Japanese Koala” is actually a big lump of termite nest wrapped on the tree trunk. Why Japanese? Cos’ a Japanese tourist mistook that “lump” as a Koala bear.

NUMBER 3 –LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK 
Our next stop is Lamington National Park. It is an Unesco World Heritage site and is well-known throughout the world for its natural beauty, rainforests, birdlife, ancient trees, waterfalls, walking tracks and mountain views. We took a spectacular drive up to the Green Mountains. There, we walked along a series of rope-and-plank suspension bridges (Tree-Top Walk) 15m above ground.

NUMBER 4 –MY SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY AT THE RANCH
My entourage threw a surprise party for me at one of the mountain ranches where we had lunch. Darran played well too, acting along with them. I enjoyed my road-trip so much that I didn’t notice the special table clothes and the hanging birthday decorations! (Not till one of the guides came to me and pointed to the hanging birthday flags!) Darran brought out the cake and they polluted the peaceful countryside with a loud 30-sec annual anthem. No striptease, dodgy karaoke or sleazy hot lady in cowboy suits, just a couple of cowboys and my loved ones. I have the perfect birthday party out here in the wild, high up in the mountains! Lovely!

After lunch, Darran gave us a crash-course how to handle the whip and Elkan’s favorite new toy – the Boomerang! Check out the photos – we were pretty good with our Boomerangs. I kinda suck in the whip (whipped myself a couple of times accidentally) but Felicia mastered it pretty well. She was quite a natural with the whip. Shit, that is bad news for me. Ouch!

Oh yes, I mentioned about the “Wild Bird-Day” in my blog title… Scroll down and check out the wild bird feeding party – the ever-friendly Australian Crimson Rosella birds.

NUMBER 5 –WILD BIRD FEEDING
Wild bird feeding began at O’Reilly’s back in the 1930’s when Bernard O’Reilly was rehabilitating an injured Crimson Rosella. On release, the bird returned daily for supplementary feeding. He couldn’t keep a secret and invited all his friends! Soon visitors to Lamington National Park were also ‘flocking’ to enjoy the experience.

We have done this in Perth 10 years ago. Lots of Crimson Rosellas (Red and Blue) and a couple of King Parrots (Green and Yellow). The birds flew down from the trees and perched on every possible spots on our bodies. Very friendly birds and certainly an enjoyable experience with these cute birds. (Can’t imagine doing this with our black crows back in Singapore!). Poor Elkan, he played too much Angry Birds and he was terrified of these birds.

NUMBER 6 –FINALE AT THE PEAK
Towards the end of our trip, Darran drove us to the peak of the mountain (1000m high) where we had a 360-view of  Gold Coast. What a beautiful sight before we descend the mountain! Stunning view!

For those who are interested in our tours – you may contact Darran directly at: Southern Cross 4WD Tours. Tel: +617 5574 5041. Email: info@sc4wd.com.au. Darran’s award winning company is highly rated at Trip Advisor and other websites. Yes, he is funny and witty! Make sure you get him to do those stunts in his 4-wheel-drive.

Day 4 – Gold Coast (Movie World)

Opened on 3rd June 1991, Warner Bros. Movie World celebrates 20 years of theme park this month! This is one of the oldest Hollywood theme parks in Asia. Back in the 90s, the Movie World was the one of those “must-visit” tourist hot spots in Asia. Today, there are 4 other big theme parks in Gold Coast – Wet & Wild, Dream World, Sea World and WhiteWaterWorld. Gold Coast is the only place in Australia where you find all the big major theme parks.

Unlike the other theme parks we have been, we had a relaxing day at the Movie World. It was weekday, there wasn’t many people in the queue. The park is small so there is no rush to explore every inch of it. A day-trip is good enough. The weather was fantastic and we managed to complete 80% of the rides. (Yeah…we took photos with our favorite DC Comics superheroes!) No crowd, no stress, no long waiting time and no rude tourists here.

First stop, Tracy challenged me to join her in the “Superman Escape” roller-coaster ride. It didn’t look scary from below but the 90-sec ride shook me up a little. The G-force was amazing – it propels the riders from 0km to 100km within 2 seconds. Nope, I didn’t scream at all – cos’ I left my soul 90 seconds behind. For the entire ride, I was struggling to hold on to the bars. It was too fast for me. I couldn’t even keep my eyes on for more than 70% of the ride.

Felicia, Elkan and Meijie did the easier ride – “Wild West Falls”. Plunging 20m down a water channel, this ride offers the largest drop in Australia. Check out their photos below. They were sitting at the last 2 sections of the cart (in yellow raincoat).

The best attraction of our visit is unanimously the “Hollywood Stunt Driver” show.  The show features many spectacular stunts – car chases, gun shots and big explosions. Check out my homemade trailer here:

Overall, we had a great time out here. However, I feel the Movie World is losing its shine and attractiveness. For the past 2 decades, it has served the people well and it is time to change (or be replaced). Compared with some of the newer theme parks (Disneyland & Universal Studio) in Hong Kong & Singapore, the Movie World definitely needs a major makeover – bigger park, more movie characters, more rides for both adults and kids, bigger special effects and better road shows.

Gold Coast Breakfast

This is the first breakfast by Felicia since she and Elkan moved back to Singapore 6 months ago. Miss her cooking. Simple and yummy. Good to have an open kitchen here in the apartment. I can buy my favorite Australian strawberries and white mushrooms.

Day 3 – Gold Coast (Surfers Paradise)

Life is perfect here in Gold Coast. The golden coast, the sun, the white powdery beach, the blue sky and the luxury living space. It was worth the torturous 15-hour bus ride. This is a near-perfect “lazy man’s / bummer’s vacation” – laid back, hot babes and lots of food. No wonder we saw so many over-weight Australians chilling out here.

Thanks to Felicia and Meijie (who did the booking for all our accommodations for this trip) – They got us a cool place at the tallest building in Australia, Q1 Tower. (Yes, Q1 Tower is the tallest building in the photo above. Q1 is the world’s tallest residential building and also the world’s 20th tallest building. Q1 stands for “Queensland 1”.) Located along Surfers Paradise and facing the golden coast, Q1 offers pretty big service apartments. For someone like me who has been all squeezed up in small tight pigeon hole in Hong Kong, you can imagine the excitement in me when I first stepped into the 200sqm 2-room apartment. We will spend 4 good days here in Gold Coast! Plenty of space to relax and roam around!

Elkan loves the beach! He was so excited about the beach and he dragged me out last evening. For 40 minutes, he was like a monkey out of his cage. He was jumping, kicking and rolling around. I was worried about the big choppy waves. There were a few times when I have to run into the water to drag him out. A little over-protective but it is always better to be safe than sorry. There was no “BayWatch” and some of the waves were as tall as him.

For the rest of the day, we were out shopping and dining at Surfers Paradise – Gold Coast’s Shopping Precinct. There are a lot of shops and restaurants here. (We saw many tourists from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong). Gold Coast is great for its surfing, theme-parks, beach-life and wildlife. Certainly not shopping and dining. They aren’t cheap. A plate of asian fried noodle cost us AUD$20. A soft-pack of Ribena cost AUD$4! Most souvenir shops are operated by the Chinese and they carry the same old boring stuffs. I wish they offer something new so I don’t bring back the same Aussie gifts that I bought 10 years ago.

Later in the afternoon, we visited the bizarre world at “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” Museum. It is a small museum of mutants, freaks and many uncanny characters. Many of these “unbelievable stories” are “old/stale news”. I feel the Ripley’s Museum has lost its charm and novelty. It need to inject more new cases, new adventures / marvels and more exotic displays to entice new visitors.

Morning Rainbow

(Photo Taken: Raindow in the Morning – After a stormy bumpy night, we were greeted by a very big rainbow in the morning. So beautiful that it lifted our spirits and took all the fatigue, body-aches away. Haven’t seen a rainbow this vibrant and big for almost 10 years. The last one I saw was in Perth back in 2002. Gold (Coast) is certainly on the other end of the Rainbow.)

15-hour ride to Gold Coast

15 hours. This is my longest bus ride ever. I am certainly not looking forward to the return bus ride back to Sydney. It is the most uncomfortable traveling experience for me – both mentally and physically.  The rain was pouring heavily last night and the bumpy ride made it difficult for me to sleep. I wasn’t even sure if I did sleep the entire journey. I kept waking up every 30-40 minutes to adjust my body and neck. (Elkan was the only person who slept peacefully throughout.) Despite the torture, I was impressed by the the two old bus drivers (in their late 50s or early 60s). Each driver drove 7-hour straight with only 2 short breaks in between. Incredible stamina and mental strength!

(Photo Below: 2am at “Bacon & Eggs” bus depot – Meijie was not happy with his supper after he saw what I got – big breakfast. Elkan slept with his eye-mask. Tracy all wrapped up in the cold. Greyhound – the name of the bus company.)