Today truly felt like we were on vacation - we slept in until 8 and had a very low-key morning. Had a lovely breakfast at the Hilton and spent the morning catching up on email and reading the local paper. Here was our morning view from our room (in the background of the second picture you can faintly see the Ferris Wheel we rode yesterday):
After determining how we were going to get to the Gold Coast, we packed up our bags, checked out, and booked it to the train station after realizing we may have been a little too relaxed and therefore left a little late. Power walking, uphill, through crowds of people, with backpacks as big as ours was not easy.
Not surprisingly, we missed the train, but fortunately, there was another one coming a half hour later, so we bought our tickets and meandered to our platform, people watching to pass the time. We got on board and curled up with the crossword section of the paper and spent the next hour doing every crossword, sudoku, and other brain teaser the paper had to offer. Even though the crosswords were in English, we missed just about every reference to anything local. We tried.
We made it to the Gold Coast around 2pm and decided to hit the grocery store across the street while waiting for the next bus. We got (for a third time) a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of honey, and some snacks. This time, we even remembered to get plastic knives! Add on some soy chicken flavored chips (for Stephen) and a bunch of things for do-it-yourself trail mix, and we were good to go.
We then returned to the bus stop where we got on the city bus that would take us to our hotel, about 45 minutes from the bus stop, right next to Sea World. We got checked in, only to discover we had a pretty sweet room awaiting us - we even have our own porch:
As we had spent a large portion of our day sitting and being in hotel rooms, we opted to walk along the beach for an hour plus, playing in the waves, picking up seashells, and exfoliating our feet. It was amazing how most of the shells were completely intact. Here are a few pictures from the beach.
The first is from right outside from our porch:
This is the path we walked down (kind of steep!):
Views of Surfers Paradise (our part of the beach was amazingly empty):
Some of the shells (the whole beach wasn't like this, just certain spots near the surf):
Around dinner time, we decided to explore the shopping center nearby for a local restaurant. However, just about everything was closed - apparently locals don't eat dinner at 7pm on Monday nights. We ended up at a restaurant called the Hog's Breath Cafe. Stephen had a steak sandwich and I had some vegetarian appetizers. The most exciting part of dinner was my drink, called "Yes!", which included vodka, lemonade, black currant liqueur, and muddled strawberries and limes. It was quite delicious. For those non-Californian readers that have had Sonic before, Stephen claims it tastes identical to a strawberry limeade. I'll have to take his word on it.
After dinner, it was already pretty late and we have a big adventure tomorrow - we head to Fraser Island for bushwalking and 4-wheel-driving on an incredible beach. Can't wait to see how it turns out!
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