Sunday, February 7, 2010

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!

15 comments:

Purple Paisley Patch said...

Hey Katy, I'm not far away, just up in Brissie, but I really enjoyed your post. I think the blog-hop travel blog is a fabulous idea, thanks for spreading the word.
I hope to see you and your baby belly at the next brown owls.
Kelly :-)

Heather said...

Awesome post, Katy!

I didn't know your husband was building a hospital! Maybe when Elijah comes to visit, we can look for a job for me at the hospital...any need for an ICU nurse there? :)

Those toads are gross!

btw, I am almost halfway through Under the Dome; I gasped out loud when those punks threw Piper down the steps!

Great Blog Trotting, Katy; thanks for the tour!

CaraBee said...

Great post, Katy! Gold Coast looks absolutely gorgeous. I have ALWAYS wanted to visit Australia.

Those toads are the stuff of nightmares. For real. I can't imagine hunting them with knives. That is crazy awesome. What do you do with them after they are frozen?

Thanks so much for being a part of BlogTrotting!

mep said...

Your house looks like something out of a magazine -- I love the indoor/outdoor dining room.

I was cracking up at the Schoolies versus Toolies and also that blotto=shitfaced.

As CaraBee's partner in crime, I don't think it's fair for me to win the giveaway, but can I tell you how much I love it?! Can't wait to check out more of your designs!

E... said...

I'm here via Blogtrotting as well, and have to echo mep's admiration for your gorgeous house. Looks like the kind of place I'd love to vacation, not to mention live!
Thanks for sharing your corner of the world -- I'm feeling like my own will seem awfully tame in comparison later this week -- no giant toads here, though our gutter cleaning guy did once almost fall off our roof when he found a smaller one living in our gutter!
I adore your bird art -- and would be thrilled to win it!

Brandy said...

Blogtrotting to read all about your piece of the world! Amazing pictures...I'm incredibly jealous of that indoor/outdoor eating area. Right now we have 11 inches of snow covering our deck. Grilling is not in our near future.

My kid will be a "schoolie" this year but we're taking a cruise instead of letting him go to the beach. I don't want him meeting up with girls like you have pictured. Yuck!

The frog in your garden is so green he looks almost fake! Thanks for sharing!

Kitty said...

Hello from Canada! Great blogtrotting post!!

Unknown said...

THAT was too cool! So, when can I come visit?
I want to cook in your amazing kitchen and eat outside under the stars!
Please oh please oh please!

I live in Maryland and we just had 36" of snow dumped on us 2 days ago. My car is still buried under 4 feet of it from the PIA snowplower!

Shelley said...

Hello Katy,

I really enjoyed getting to know a little about your neck of the world. What a lovely back porch with the grill and table all out. I'm afraid I cannot live or even visit Australia now that I know about those awful frogs. OMG!!!! I would just freak out if I encountered something like that.
Thanks for the tour. It was a great post.

sheila said...

I'm here from blogtrot! OMG, that cane toad is wicked awesome! lol!!!!

And I suppose Schoolies week is a lot like Spring Break here...only it looks like your teens wear more clothes. ha ha! :)

Shannon said...

I'm here from Blogtrotting! Great tour... I've always wanted to go to Australia!

I absolutely LOVE your indoor/outdoor kitchen/dining room!

However, I do NOT love that toad! GAH! I wouldn't like to find one of those in my backyard, that's for sure.

My Chesapeake Mommy said...

Glad blogtrotting brought me to your blog. What a fun way to travel from my living room!

Natalie said...

here from blogtrotters :) and i must say those frogs sound insane!

i'm from a little town in Idaho, USA. we're lucky if we even see a frog at all up here in the north. haha.

Momisodes said...

Visiting from Blog-Trotting! Thank you so much for sharing your corner of the world. That indoor/outdoor dining space is amazing. The weather and beaches looks like a dream!

Cash for Gold said...
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