We have spent the last couple of days down at Palm Beach initiating Lynn and Leslie in the ways of the Gold Coast before we head to Byron Bay for the day tomorrow.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after a leisurely drive through some of the coastal towns along the way, which in itself was a truly bizarre experience as we passed through many purpose built towns that were like something out of Sim City. All the houses were architecturally designed so that no two houses matched and there was not one person to be seen anywhere! All very odd!!

When we arrived at our destination however, we were pleased to find that the apartment that had been recommended to us by Leslie's cousin David was right on the beach and looked out across the ocean. We went for a stroll along the beach where we were greeted with the looming mass of Surfer's Paradise on the horizon - the epitome of the Australian dream - with the buildings stretching high into the sky barely ten metres from the edge of the beach.

All this walking had built up an appetite in us all so we headed to the Surf Lifesaving Club for some dinner and to try to teach Lynn and Leslie the finer art of the 'Pokie' machines. For the uninitiated, they are like fruit machines back home, only not as good and with no real logic to them at all it would seem. Although one thing out here that seems like a damn fine idea, is that in a lot of places where there are a couple of rows of Pokies (there's normally at least ten in any social club, bar and hotel) they have a running total that increases every minute until it reaches a predetermined amount and then somebody is guaranteed to walk away with the jackpot. These totals normally roll on for a week or so and reach anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 until somebody wins a whole lot of cash!

Today we headed into the heart of Surfer's to show the folks around and give them a glimpse of how the bold and the beautiful live in the heart of the Gold Coast. After poking around in lots of the shops (Lynn has really found her form on this front) we stopped into one of the pubs where Lynn and Leslie were introduced to their first Gold Coast Meter Maid as a gold bikini clad girl walked into the restroom. These girls are employed to walk around the town in their gold bikini, cowgirl had and boots and red sash to ensure that people don't get parking tickets by topping up the meters for them. At least that's how they started; now they just seem to act as yet another tourist attraction as they spend most of their day posing for photographs with visitors and pulling their bikini bottoms out of their arses!

We tried to go up to the observation tower at the top of one of the newer skyscrapers in the afternoon, but the tower was closed for a private function for the rugby league club representatives as the season kicks off again this weekend. Down but not out we headed down to the beach for a pose under the Surfer's Paradise sign where the police were cruising along the beach on their quad bikes!

Tomorrow we are heading down into New South Wales for the day to see the sights of Byron Bay.