"It's where Australians go on holidays", all the brochures say. It's true too. Like the Florida of the Southern Hemisphere, golden beaches fenced by holiday towers and a tourism infrastructure fine-tuned since the 50s attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Families are the prime target, school leavers, backpackers, Japanese surfer boys, racing car enthusiasts and retirees follow suit. If surf and sand is your thing, the Coast is a must-see part of Australia. The World-Heritage listed national parks behing the mountains take the glare off the glitz.
Those same mountains were the first draw-card for European settlers in the mid 1800s. Full of red cedar and not far from Brisbane, the area in and around Lamington National Park was a fantastic felling-ground for fine timber. The plains on either side of the Great Divide weren't the most fertile territory in the world, but they quickly attracted their share of cows and farmhouses.
Things stayed pretty languid for a while. Then the motor car came along. When Brisvegans realised there was a treasure trove of sandy beaches a day's trip south, the hoteliers and entrepreneurs quickly set up shop.
By the 1950s there were a bunch of beach shacks, by the 1960s the first hi-rise apartment blocks started to appear, along with the first theme parks. The 1970s and 1980s brought more of the same, and by the 1990s the Gold Coast was the most popular family holiday destination in the country, not to mention the city with the fastest growing population.
Look in the wrong place and you'll see the trashy underbelly — seedy nightclubs, Meter Maids, skimpy skirts, and white shoe brigades. Look in the right place and you'll see a region of great natural beauty with a thriving economy, plenty of money, outstanding weather and a skyline you can either love or hate. No other destination in Australia has so much stuff for kids to do at such close range, and if you want a place in the sun, it's hard to beat. You wouldn't go to the Gold Coast looking for a wilderness escape, but if you want an anonymous Australian holiday, this is the place.
Fly. Virgin Blue and Jetstar run hourly services to the major Australian cities, and if you're coming in from overseas, Brisbane International airport is an hour up the road. If you're driving up the coast from Sydney and you make it to Byron Bay, it's worth going the extra 100km, even just to have a look.
Hire a car from an independent local operator when you get there, it'll work out cheaper (but make sure you book ahead first). The local bus network is adequate, but if you want to go any further than the next beach or shopping centre, be prepared to wait. You're more likely to catch The Plague than you are a taxi on Friday or Saturday night.
Broadbeach (just south of Surfers Paradise) has the greatest concentration of restaurants. Main Beach (just north of Surfers Paradise) is the place to be seen easting. The food in Surfers Paradise is pretty average, but there are lots of hidden Japanese and Korean lunch box style cafes tucked away in the side alleys which are well worth a look.
Surfers Paradise has most of the bars, nightclubs and cafes
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