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 with beach babes in bikinis and dudes on surfboards. I wouldn't be exaggerating one bit to say that the water actually glints in the sun all day long, and that Surfers Paradise really is about as close to an ideal beach resort as you could get. I'm also staying close enough to the major Gold Coast tourist attractions such as Warner Brothers Movie World, SeaWorld, Wet N' Wild and DreamWorld that I'm certainly not going to be short of things to entertain me for the next few days. From the moment I arrived, everybody has been smiling at me in the street and greeting me with a cheerful G'day as they pass with their multicoloured surfboards tucked under their arms, and I'm told that there will be nochange of pace or difficulty finding anything to do just because it's Christmas. Sorry, I should say Crimbo. I've learned from the Aussies that there's no point wasting time saying a whole word when you could be heading down to the beach, which is exactly where I intended to spend my first day here.

After laying my towel out by the sea and soaking up a few minutes worth of the Gold Coast sun, I began to realise why it was that everyone around me looked like a slice of overdone toast and why the typical Gold Coast local looks like a full blooded Aborigine. With the lilting tones of Beach FM pumping out old school tunes from loudspeakers all along the beach, time seemed to pass quite rapidly and it was all I could do to avoid being lulled off to sleep to the sounds of The Beach Boys and waking up hours later with first degree burns. In fact, the Australians are starting to take serious notice of the fact that they have the highest incidence of Skin Cancer inthe world, and have begun a highly publicised awareness exercise in which everyone is encouraged to Slip, Slop, Slap - Slip on a Shirt, Slop on some Sunscreen and Slap on a Hat. I'd love to have been in the meeting when they thought that one up - I certainly had to ask what it meant the first time I saw Slip, Slop, Slap written on a street sign. To anyone unfamiliar with the campaign, it could just as easily mean Slip on a Banana Skin, Slop out the Toilets and Slap in the face! Still, the point seems to be slowly eating it's way into peoples heads, even if a hat and a shirt aren't exactly seen as trendy fashion accessories on the beach.

Not wishing to look like a beetroot quite so early in my trip, my day on the beach became a couple of hours on the beach. Safely done up in tee-shirt and hat, I wandered down Orchid Avenue and along Caville Mall (McDonalds here is universally referred to as Macca's on Caville) looking for possibilities for a fun night on the town. The porter at my hotel, who is a possible contender for tallest man in the Universe, looked down upon me from a great height this morning while suggesting a number of places I should look out for and offering me a ton of free passes - which I translated to mean that these were all the places where he would get a commission! In particular, I was advised, a bar called Shooters was very popular with the local Bikini-set. His words, not mine.

I found Shooters on the first floor of the Mark Building on Orchid Avenue, amusingly situated immediately adjacent to a shop called Condom Kingdom which seems to sell about six thousand varieties of condoms - most of which have secondary functions I probably wouldn't want to go into here. I had images of the clientele lining up in twos from one establishment to the other at the end of a really successful night out and I made a mental note to put Shooters up there at the top of my list of places to visit.

When the sun eventually goes down here after a hard days shining, Surfers Paradise becomes a party town. The bars quickly pack out with revellers, many of who look as though they've just walked straight across from the beach - there seems to be little use for a dress code in a place where putting on anything more than a G-String results in you melting into a puddle of sweat after five minutes. I'm impressed with the choice in Surfers Paradise when it comes to things to do in the evening. Shooters is an authentic American Western Saloon which does appear to be very popular and contains a dance floor as well as pool tables and a lounge area, The Penthouse is a club which contains four floors of differing music styles to keep everyone happy, Bourbon offers mainly R&B and Soul, and The Crazy Horse is a Girlie Bar and Table Dancing club. Littered along the street between the clubs are bars and shops which seem to stay open until almost dawn most nights, so there's truly something for everyone - unless you happen to be a Monk.

Tired from my trip, I settled on my first night for a good meal at the local Hard Rock Café where my server was called Kelly and was so smiley and cheerful and, well, Australian, that I wanted to take her home in a doggie bag. The fact that she was wearing next to nothing also helped. I was also somewhat impressed that she came and got me personally from the bar when my table was ready, rather than doing the really annoying thing they do when you're on your own at a restaurant in the USA which is to announce over the intercom: "Jones, Party of One, your table is ready" so that you have to endure the sympathetic stares of everyone as you are led to your table! This, in my opinion, is only marginally better than having a waitress yell across the room "Oy, sid? Bloke with no mates on the barstool over there - tell him 'is tables ready, will yer?".

Full from the largest meal I think I've had on the trip so far, I swaggered over to Shooters trying to look sophisticated and found that the brutish thug on the door wouldn't let me in without Photo ID. I had forgotten that anyone who looks under thirty gets asked for ID over here, and I'd left my passport in the hotel. Next time, I'll remember to bring my passport with me and I'll get a different bouncer who won't want to see it. That's usually how it works.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.