The Gold Coast - Beaches and Cane Toads

Welcome all you Blogtrotters! Blog-Trotting is a blog that highlights a different city in Amercia and the World everyday through other people blogs and today (or tomorrow depending which country you are in) is the day for..

The Gold Coast, Queensland Australia
The Gold Coast is a relatively new city compared to all others in Australia, it was established under the name "The Gold Coast" in 1958 as a major tourist destination. Back then the population was around 50,00, today it is nearly 500,000. The tourists flock to the Gold Coast for some of the best beaches in the world, the night light of Surfers Paradise and the great shopping. I live in a suburb called Coombabah, the word is Aboriginal for "Home of Turtles". It is just north of Surfers Paradise, the most popular suburb of The Gold Coast. We moved here last November because my husband is building the new Gold Coast Hospital at Labrador (yes.... thats the name of a suburb!) This is his building sight, 6kms from home.


This is my little piece of paradise - my lovely home! We moved in last November, it has beautiful bromeliad and palm tree gardens, so relaxing.

This is is indoor/outdoor kitchen dining room. The weather here is beautiful most of the year, sub-tropical is the official term, so we just cook out dinner on the BBQ and eat outside (covered in Mozzie (mosquito) Spray!) most nights.
This is my husband filling up our big fish pond at the front of our house. Our garden looks like a jungle!

Surrounding Areas...

Surfers Paradise About 15 minutes from my house is Surfers Paradise, the main suburb of The Gold Coast, with the tallest building called Q1. Close by is Cavill Mall great for shopping and drinking, pristine patrolled beaches. There is even a beach dedicated to dogs at a place called The Spit, my dog Bella goes bananas when we go there... This is picture of one part of the beach called Main Beach.

Photo From Beau Mitchell.

Events

Surfers Paradise also hosts Schoolies Week each year. Every year all the kids who finish high school each year come to Surfers Paradise on The Gold Coast to celebrate end of exams and get completely blotto (shitfaced)


It is absolute choas each year - lots of drunken teenagers but lots of fun. The young kids that have finished school are called Schoolies and any older people that show up trying to pick up young drunk teenagers and join in are called Toolies. There is often a lot of fighting and drug arrests but it is usually the Toolies that get arrested.

There parents must be proud. Photo from Gold Coast.com.au.

Other than awesome beaches, shopping and drunk teeenages, The Gold Coast also is...

Places to Visit
The Gold Coast has the Lion's share of Australia's Theme Parks including..

Sea World - My husband and I swam with the dolphins at Seaworld, they are also polar bears, you can even swim with sharks, they have rides to.


Dreamworld - all the cartoon characters etc. great for kids and has kick-ass rides. I patted a tiger cub there once!

Photo from Christian Bowman.

and Wet'n'Wild - a massive water park with some really full-on water rides.

Photo from Hub Pages.

I can't talk about The Gold Coast with our introducing you to on of our pesky residents...

The Residents

People .. Capital of Cosmetic Surgery
The Gold Coast has a variety of residents, from bogans (see below) to breast enlarged botox beauties (i'm an not included in this demographic!), retirees to unemployed surfers, with a strong New Zealander population as well.

Photo from Gold Coast.com.au

Pests.. The Cane Toad... Photo of a Bogan (Australian term used to describe members of society that are a combination of what the Yanks call Rednecks, Jocks and Trailer Park Trash) with a giant Cane Toad From Here.

The Cane Toads were introduced into Queensland in 1935 in an attempt to stop French’s Cane Beetle and the Greyback Cane Beetle from destroying sugar cane crops in North Queensland. They have since spread across the top of Australia and South to as far as Port Macquarie, killing indigenous species of frogs. They are poisonous, so we have to be careful that our dog doesn't try and eat them coz she would die... :-( Some people have been said to boil them up and drink the juice that comes out of them to get off their chops... don't know about that!

They are considered a pest that kill our native species so we go cane toad hunting in the garden at night, they love our moist garden and our two ponds. My husband and I stab them with knifes and then put them in the freezer! Even after i stab them they still hop around - freaky things. Luckly ours are alot smaller than the one in the photo above!

Thankfully we still have lots of Green Tree frogs in our garden too, they hide in the bamboo, up and away from where the Cane Toads roam.

The Good Frog! - a green tree frog in our garden. So there is a little bit about our little piece of paradise, here on The Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. I hope you enjoyed it - leave me a message with what part of the world you are from!

Pop over to Blog Trotting everyday to find out about another part of our huge world!