Arriving on the Gold Coast with Eloise couldn't have been more different from my previous experience of stepping off the Sydney to Brisbane bus at Surfers Paradise and heading straight for my welcoming hotel bed. On that occasion, I had meticulously planned my tour in fine detail with the travel agent before setting out and already had somewhere to stay at every destination. In fact, I had laid down so much cash in advance to make sure that I didn't end up gettin...

Christmas in Paradise is probably one of the oddest things I have ever experienced. For the few days running up to Christmas, Santa Claus could be found regularly wandering around the shopping precinct in Caville Mall handing out presents to passers by while wearing a tiny pair of shorts and showing off two scantily clad blondes on each arm. I wonder if Mrs Claus knows about this. If Santa wasn't on show in the precinct, he was usually zooming up and down the loc...

This morning I took the bus to Movie World, which turns out to be right next door to Wet N' Wild. As I got off outside the entrance, the bus driver called after me that I needed to be back at the bus stop by five in the afternoon otherwise I'd be stuck there all night - she then laughed as the doors closed in the best impression of a HammerHorror evil laugh I've heard in a while, so I started my day already pretty freaked out. I had big expectations for a theme ...

I pricked up my ears at a conversation between a young couple in the hotel bar this morning: "So," the girl was saying, "Will you have to get a new heart?" "Naw" her companion replied, "This one ain't so bad. Should last a bit longer." There was an awkward silence before the girl spoke again: "Well it's up to you, obviously, Scott - but if I had a hole that size in my heart I'd want to get a new one pretty quick." Two or three other British tourists were takin...

So here I am on the Gold Coast for Christmas - and I can tell that I'm in for an exceptional time. The weather is as different from Sydney as I can imagine - down there it was just sunny, here on the Gold Coast my blood is in serious danger of boiling. I'm told that Cairns will be even hotter when I get there next week, so I think I might leave most of my clothes behind before moving on. The beach at Surfers is a several mile stretch of pure white sand packed wi...