9/12 Gold Coast and Yarra Valley Winery Tour

Last weekend I went to Gold Coast, which is located on the eastern coast of Australia, an hours drive from Brisbane. My flight left Thursday evening (8/30), which made me leave my physics lab early and miss classes on Friday. I took a bus, train, and another bus to get to the airport, and was there well before my 6:40 pm flight.  The flight took about two hours. I had made a reservation at a hostel, YHA Coolangatta, that was near the airport. I had to ask an airport employee how to get to the YHA, but I did manage to find it since it was less than a mile from the airport. The YHA was fairly nice, but it was very empty. I was in a room with six beds, but there was only one other guy in the room with me. I got up early in the morning and left around 9:30 am.

The room I stayed in at the YHA.

The view from outside the room.

I took a bus, which stopped fairly close (5 minute walk) from the YHA, to Surfers Paradise, which took nearly an hour. Surfers Paradise is the main part of the city, especially for tourists, and it has a popular beach. When I got there I wandered around a bit, stopping in the malls and walking along the beach. I stopped at one of information booths and asked where the nearby hostels were. They pointed out a few on the map and I walked to the nearest one, which was Islander Resort Hotel/Islander Backpackers Resort. I got a room there for 3 nights. It was located about 4 blocks from the beach, with the main shopping area inbetween. They offered a deal on surfing lessons through one of the local companies, so I booked that right away for 2 that afternoon. It was only noon so I walked around the city some more and walked along the ocean again. Then I went back to the hotel and the surf instructor, Craig, picked me up there. There were 3 others in my lesson group, but they had all been surfing with Craig the day before. One was a guy from Tennessee, which was an odd coincidence. We went a ways away to the beach, put on wetsuits, and carried our surf boards to the beach. The others went in the water right away, while Craig taught me the basics. Then we went in the water and he helped me at first by pushing my board when the wave came so that it was easier for me. Eventually I was able to do the entire thing on my own. We were there for over an hour and I managed to get up on a handful of the waves, but I spent most of my time falling off of the board. We were near the shore the entire time (the water was never above my shoulders), and the waves were fairly small. I had forgotten how salty the ocean is, which made falling into the water pretty terrible. It was fun, but I was glad that it was over because I was tired and I got a bit too much saltwater in my nose and mouth. We packed up the gear and he took us back to our respective hotels. Back at the hotel I made a reservation for Sea World the next day. They had a nice deal that included whale watching and then entry to Sea World which I took advantage of. That evening, I walked around the city some more, and then spent some time at the hotel.

The next morning (Saturday, 9/1) I took a bus to Sea World, which was 20 minutes away. The whale watching tour was run by Sea World and departed from right next to Sea World as well. The tour was at 10 am, but I was there around 9, so I had to wait for a while. The boat was very nice, just a few years old. It two levels with cabins, and then a third level viewing area. They showed some informational movies about whales while we were going from the dock out from the bay. They took us out to the ocean, and it wasn't long before we saw whales. At first they were pretty far away, but eventually we got closer to them. It was very cool, especially when there were 3 whales playing about 30 yards from the boat. Unfortunately, we had to leave even though the whales were still right next to the boat. I managed to get some good pictures and videos of the whales, as you should be able to see below.

The seats in the cabin were very nice.

After we returned around 12:30 I went in to Sea World. I saw a handful of the shows they had, which included a detective show with the sea lions, a show with the dolphins, feeding of the fairy penguins (small penguins), and a show with professional jet skiiers. The jet ski guys were very impressive, one guy did 9 consecutive backflips with the jet ski. There were also exhibits with sharks, other fish, more penguins, polar bears, and dinosaurs (just statues, not living).

The following day I took a bus in the morning to Dream World, which was about 30 minutes away. Dream World is one of the major theme parks in the area, but I was told that it was the best to go to. Dream World has 8 major roller coasters, but also some other animal exhibits. I got there a little after they opened (10 am), and there were very short lines at first so I went on some of the rides right away. After going on a couple of rides I saw their tiger show and a short 3D Robin Hood movie they had. In the afternoon I went on more of the rides and then went to see the crocodile show (wasn't much of a show) and sheep shearing. They also had koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, ostriches, and other animals. Then I went to go on some of the roller coasters I hadn't been on yet. I think I went on 7 of the 8 major coasters, skipping the flume so I didn't get wet. It was almost 4 (they close at 5), so I walked around the park one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything. There was another show at the tiger exhibit, which was fun to watch because they had out the two 6-month old Bengal tigers, and the zookeeper was playing around with them. It was worrying when the tigers would jump on him or swat at him with their paws, but surprisingly he did not get injured. I left after that, took the bus back to Surfers Paradise, and did not do much else that evening.

The tiger was right above us.

The next day was Monday (9/3), and my flight back to Melbourne was at 5:40 pm. I checked out of the hostel before 10 am, and wandered around a bit more. I couldn't find anything to do, partly because I had to carry all of my stuff with me, so after I ate I took the 50-minute bus ride to the airport. I got to the airport before 2 pm, so I had to wait a long time for my flight. We landed in Melbourne a little before 8 pm, after which I took a bus, train, and bus back to Monash.





This past Saturday (9/7) was another IFSA-Butler event. It was a day trip to some wineries in Yarra Valley. Niya and I met the rest of the group in the CBD (Central Business District, what they call the downtown area) after 9 am, and we took a wine tour van. We drove for nearly an hour and first stopped at a small farmers market in St. Andrews. It wasn't great, we left after an hour.

The next stop was at the Balgouwnie Estate. There we did some wine tasting and then had lunch. The wines I tasted, 7 in total, all tasted pretty bad. For lunch I had duck, which was alright, I hadn't had it before, but it didn't taste very different from other bird meats.

After that we drove to another winery, Domaine Chandon, where I tasted another unpleasant wine. They also gave us a short tour showing how the wine is made and stored.

They had a giant cork on top of their welcome sign.

Our final stop was a third winery, Yering Farm. This one was much smaller, and they just had one relatively small building. We tried some more wines, but again none of them were worthwhile. They also let us have some of the apple juice they made at that farm, and it was delicious and by far my favorite beverage of the day. After a while we left and went back to the CBD. Niya and I ate dinner at Hungry Jacks, which is their version of Burger King, for the first time before we headed back to Monash.