The Gold Coast

I`m back in Sydney again, after my last little trip to see other parts of Australia. During the past 3 days I was up in Queensland staying in Surfer`s Paradise along the Gold Coast. I was a little worried that it would be raining the entire time I was there, but I got lucky! It was partly cloudy most of the 3 days, but it meant I could still enjoy the beach, and didn`t get sunburned, so I guess it`s a win win :).

When I got to the Gold Coast, I was looking at different day tours you could take to see the local the attractions, but in the end, myself and Patrick decided to just stay put, relax, and enjoy the beach! It felt a lot like being in Florida, with high rises all along the coast, and nothing but one long beach running for miles in either direction. It was so nice to just grab the beach bag, walk 5 minutes, and next thing you know you`re sitting on the beach. The waves were pretty big too! We spent a lot of time watching the surfers, and also did a bit of swimming ourselves. The water was amazingly warm, which helped with the lack of sun.

On the flight back to Sydney, we were told that there was a big storm passing over, and that winds with 50kts, and that we might experience some heavy turbulence. Me and Patrick being weather-nerds got excited lol, we even filmed the landing which I`ll have to post later ;). The pilot wasn`t kidding, there was some good turbulence up high, then as we were coming in for landing you could see the effect of the strong crosswinds with the wings tipping up and down. Apparently there is another big storm coming in this Sunday, similar to the last, so it`ll be interesting to see if we get some more flash flooding in the area.

Yesterday, Patrick had an extra day off work, so we decided to check out Manly, the first beach that is north of the Sydney harbour. It was about a 30min ferry ride from Circular Quay. We were able to sit outside at the front of the ferry, which got really interesting when we reached the harbour entrance (the `heads`as it`s called). The captain warns you to hold onto a rail, or sit down, because the swell from the ocean at the mouth of the harbour starts to get strong. The boat was rocking up and down, it made for a thrilling ride to say the least! lol. We watched as the ferry going to the opposite way passed us, and it was crazy to see just how much we were really tipping side to side!

When we got into Manly, we checked out all the tourist shopping sites, as well as the beach. I`ll admit, after seeing the Gold Coast, it wasn`t quite as impressive lol, but I can see why it`s a popular spot for surfers, as the waves were more organized and the surfers were showing off some nice moves. We discovered an awesome microbrewery called `4 Pines` that served lunch, and it reminded me a lot of Halifax! The food was amazing, and the homemade beer was really good, definitely a spot to go back to.

Today I`m taking it easy this morning, and plan to go into the Sydney weather office this afternoon for a few hours to get shown around and see how forecasting is done here, so it should be pretty enlightening!

I`ll post more photos soon! Hope all is well back home :)