Spent three nights on the Gold Coast at Main Beach Tourist Park just up the coast a bit from Surfers Paradise. The day we arrived in the Gold Coast we heard on the radio that a 19 year old had went missing while swimming at Surfers Paradise and was suspected drowned. His body turned up a couple of days later a few miles up the coast. This is quite common apparently and It's easy to see how this could happen as the sea was pretty rough when we were there and there's only small sections of the beach that have life guards on duty.

The Gold Coast is basically one big city that is made up of a lot of different areas along the coast. Surfers Paradise is probably the most well known and the most recognised with it's big shiny skyscrapers along the beachfront. It's home to what is currently Queenslands tallest building, Q1. It's the complete opposite of what we'd been used to the last few days and was a bit of a culture shock when we first arrived but there's so much to do in the area with loads of theme parks, water parks and tons of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. The surf beaches are great but we hardly spent any time at the beach because it was so rough. We decided to take a tour on the Superduck which is one of those road and river tours. It's a good way to see the city as there's loads of canals and waterways. We were the only ones on the tour so we got a load of travel tips from the tour guide.

The camp site was just a couple of minutes walk from Tedder Avenue which is one of the main eating places in the area with loads of great little restaurants. We had a really nice Thai meal there one night. We spent the next day at Sea World which is one of the big parks and walking distance from the campsite. It's a mix between a theme park with a couple of big rides and a sea life centre with dolphin shows, polar bears, penguins, sharks, stingrays and loads of fish.

We're now in Brisbane which is only about an hours drive north from the Gold Coast. We returned the campervan yesterday and were sad to see it go as we'd had a great time with it. We're now staying in a serviced apartment for a few days. We'll probably pick up a hire car when we leave here. A big weekend of sporting action coming up as the Socceroos as in the final of the Asia cup tonight against South Korea, Andy Murray is in the final of the Australian Open against Novak Djokivic and The Dons are defending their League Cup title in the semi-final against Dundee United, which I doubt I will be able to see over here….COYR!!