My Visual Travel Experience: Gold Coast, Australia

In 2011, I spent over a month in Australia. My girlfriend, who I went on to marry later that year, joined me for the second half of the trip. I traveled extensively across the country. Two of those days were spent in Gold Coast. It's a city that does not have a lot of history, but it flourishes on tourism because of its miles and miles of sunny beaches, and the many tourist attractions that have come up. We got so busy with the city's theme parks that we had no time left to spend on the beaches!

Gold Coast is a coastal city in the state of Queensland. It has a population of around 600,000 (as of 2019), and is the state’s second largest city after the capital Brisbane. It is also Australia’s 6th largest city overall, after Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

James Cook was the first European who sailed along this coast in 1770. Europeans started inhabiting the region in 1823, when the explorer John Oxley landed here. A number of small towns came up along the coastline, and once the Surfers Paradise Hotel opened in the late 1920s, the Gold Coast region started growing exponentially and became a popular tourist destination.

The town’s name was initially South Coast, because it was south of Brisbane. In 1958, it changed its name to Gold Coast because of the high prices of real estate, goods and services. By the 1980s, the city was one of the country’s top tourist destinations, because of its sunny climate, its coastline, its surfing beaches, its glitzy night life, and its many theme parks.

Surfers Paradise is a part of Gold Coast and is popular entertainment and tourism centre. It is also full of high rise buildings that give the city an attractive skyline. It has a population of about 20,000 (as per the 2011 census). Cavill Avenue is a busy shopping street and night life district and is the main hub of activity in Surfers Paradise. Most of the city's top attractions lie in Surfers Paradise.

Q1 Tower is a 322 meter high skyscraper. When it was made in 2005, it was the world’s tallest residential building. The observation deck on Level 77 has a height of 230 meters, allows 400 people at a time, and gives a 360 degree view of the region. Q1 Tower is one of the tallest man-made structures in the southern hemisphere. 

Q1 Tower

View looking southwards from the observation deck
of Q1 Tower

Ripley’s Surfers Paradise has exhibits showing remarkable real life attractions like the world’s tallest man, the world’s fattest man, and many other fascinating oddities, both natural, and man-made.  

Man with the blue face

The world's fattest man

Man with the popping eye-balls

Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man

Man with three legs

Gold Coast Wax Museum has wax figures of royalty, world leaders, pop musicians and other entertainers. It also has a popular Chamber of Horrors, set in a medieval dungeon.

Elvis Presley

Mahatma Gandhi

Princess Diana

Michael Jackson

Whitney Houston

Dracula’s Haunted House opened in 2008. The museums has multiple levels of thrilling experiences and optical illusions. In addition to many creepy experiences, visitors get to see life-like versions of several terrifying creatures, including a giant crocodile, a large spider and a shark.

Dracula's Haunted House

Hard Rock Café opened in 1996. It has a wide selection of cocktails, American cuisines, rock memorabilia on the walls, and  a shop selling merchandize. 

Hard Rock Cafe

Chevron Renaissance is a popular resort that has holiday apartments, and a lot of facilities for visitors, including an outdoor swimming pool. It also has residential apartments and a shopping centre. The complex was completed in 2005.  It consists of three towers, the central one having 48 floors and the other two having 39 floors.

Chevron Renaissance

Sea World opened in 1971 and is a marine mammal park, oceanarium and theme park. Its attractions include sea lion shows, dolphin shows, penguins, pelicans and other water birds, marine life from the Great Barrier Reef, cable car rides from the entrance to inside the park, and various water rides. 

Entrance, Sea World

Cable Cars, Sea World

Sea Lion Show, Sea World

Star Fish, Sea World

Sting Ray, Sea World

The attractions and rides at Sea World are continuously changed and upgraded. It is certainly among the world's best such theme parks.

Dolphin

King Penguins

Gentoo Penguin

Pelican and other water birds

Marine life from the Great Barrier Reef

Gold Coast is certainly a place where one can have a lot of fun, whether it's at the beach, relaxing at the resorts, shopping in the vibrant markets, eating and drinking at the gourmet restaurants, enjoying the night life, or visiting the world class theme parks. Being a relatively new city, it doesn't have a lot of history and hence one can't expect to find heritage attractions, but they have done an excellent job of packing in mind-blowing options for the millions of tourists who visit. It is truly an entertainment city, rivaling the likes of Las Vegas or Macau.