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13 April, 2015

Queensland - Week One

Disclaimer: None of these photos have been touched.

Hey everyone!
Get ready for a very long post about my first week in Queensland!

Click 'read more' to see what I've been up to in the Gold Coast! 
My family and I departed from Hobart to Sydney, then up to the Gold Coast! It took about 5 hours, but I was still so energetic! 

When we arrived at our holiday home, I raced out the car to see what it was like. It's absolutely beautiful! We have a large pool, 3 bathrooms, and plenty of beds! 
The view from our background is wonderful too. To your left, you can see the buildings from Broadbeach, and in front of us is a small beach and a massive canal. Sadly, you can't swim in it, as there are bull sharks that breed in there! But you can kayak, which is what my step mum and dad did straight away in the morning!








This is what my first breakfast consisted of: raspberry & apricot jam!


Sometimes during the day, we always get a visitor that invites itself in and eats crumbs off the floor...




It's such a beautiful and tamed bird, look at how close I was able to get to! I've seen a lot of these birds around town, and they're also very tame, and hardly frightened of humans. I saw yesterday one of the birds literally rested behind the seat of a couple, and it didn't even fly away when they took notice of it, unlike other birds who wouldn't even think about sitting behind a human that could possibly harm them. 
The bird that comes into our house regularly only has one foot, so we call it One Leg!




Later that morning, we spent the whole day just simply driving and exploring the Gold Coast, specifically Surfer's Paradise. It was hard taking snaps whilst driving, but I believe I got a few good shots :-)
I really like the different sorts of architecture and design in the Gold Coast. They're all so different and unique, yet they blend together really well. It's lovely!





These hand-painted koalas are everywhere in the Gold Coast - from Surfer's Paradise to Coolangatta! Apparently you can buy them for yourself - I really want one in my front yard, aha!

This has been my favourite building so far! I'm loving the different pastel colours and shaped sides.

Later that day, we drove all the way up to the Glow Worms Caves in Mt. Tamborine. 
While we were waiting for the tour to start, I had enough time to explore the grounds of the centre and take a few photos.








Can you see the lizard? I could hardly see it at first!


These are the man-made caves that the glow worms live in. Sadly, I couldn't take any photos whilst I was in the cave. But, it is a good thing, because if the worms see any bright light, they fall asleep immediately, basically forever. And because they don't wake up, they don't eat, which causes them to starve to death. Pretty fascinating, huh?
Our tour guide's name was Harry; or Ned Kelly, if you forgot. His jokes were terrible, but he had a fantastic beard, ahaha!



When we arrived back outside of the caves, these female lizards were everywhere - on the cave, in the trees, and in the water.



This lizard here is the alpha of the lizards. He has about 20 different girlfriends, the cheeky fellow. His mouth his permanently open because of a recent fight with another male lizard (who wanted to take his place) and bit his jaw.
I couldn't get any closer with my camera as he was quite far away, but he's one of the biggest lizards I have ever seen!


This was the view on top of Mt. Tamborine. It looked way more amazing than the photo, trust me! You could see all of the Gold Coast.


The following day, we travelled up to Coomera and into Dreamworld! I've never been to any of the World's before, so my inner child was released! 
I didn't take many photos (surprisingly) because I was way too busy enjoying myself! I don't regret it one bit though :-)


The only bad thing about that day was that we wasted a lot of time. It took us nearly 2-3 hours just to get on 2 rides. The one that took up most of our time was the Tower of Terror II. It took us an hour and a half you get to the front of the line, but in the end, the ride broke down and we waited another 20 minutes. In the end, we gave up and left. But, just 10 minutes after we left, we heard a familiar 'vroom!' behind us. Turns out, the damn Tower of Terror II had been fixed. Just our luck. 

We did go on it later on, though ;-)




The first ride I conquered was the BuzzSaw. It was so much fun. It twisted and turned up the top of the ride, then you came zooming back down!
The rest of the rides I mastered were the Cyclone, the Motocoaster, Thunder River Rapids, Wipeout, the damn Tower of Terror II aaaand... the Giant Drop!




This massive beast is the tower that holds two rides - the Tower of Terror II and the famous and ridiculously fun/scary ride, the Giant Drop. On the Giant Drop, you travel all the way up to the tippy top, and sit there for a moment, admiring the view. You think it's all dandy and great until suddenly, swoosh! Down you go, screaming and blacking out. Well, at least, that's what I did... 
It's 119 metres high (39 storeys!) and then you fall down at the speed of gravity (139 km/h). I actually blacked out for a millisecond!

These cinnamon-glazed cashews are now my favourite things in life. They taste absolutely divine, I'm so tempted to make some of my own!



Here is my future home:


Later that night, we went to the Night Market in Surfer's Paradise. There were so many beautiful and quirky things to buy, but they were pretty dear, so I gave it a miss. 
I was feeling so confident and brave that night, and I was going to take a lot of photos. I did, until I walked into a stall. I was about to take a picture of these lovely, milkshake shaped candles, but the old owner of the stall told me off and got a bit angry, so that made me shy away and not take as much as I would have liked... Thanks for ruining my confidence, lady (your candles were pretty cool, though).

















live for markets, especially one's at night! I find it quite relaxing and enjoyable :-)



On Saturday, while the others went to the beach downtown, my nan and I decided to explore the streets of Gold Coast. The first thing we did was the Infinity Maze. Again, I couldn't take any pictures, as it was not allowed. I wish I could though, I would've gotten some great pics!


'Infinity' is a maze-like attraction, and the special effects and illusions make it trippy and absolutely mind-blowing. But oh my god, was it scary. My nan and I were screaming every ten minutes!  In order to escape the maze altogether, you had to find secret doorways and curtains to go into the next futuristic room. In one of them, it tok us probably over 15 minutes, without a doubt. It was pitch black, and all of these things were daggling from the ceilings and sticking out of the walls. They were hairy and slimy and it was just digusting and frightening. While we were in there, a collection of 8 year olds entered, and my nan decided to scare them by walking up to them (they could only see our hands as we had glow in the dark gloves), and screaming. The little girls all started screaming as well and one of them was close to tears! I tried so hard not to laugh, my nan is so cruel!

After we finally escaped the terrifying maze, we decided to reward ourselves to lunch at Pancakes in Paradise. They were a m a z i n g. Nan had the Hot Bavarian Apple pancakes, whilst I had the Sticky Date pancakes. We were so full after eating every single crumb on the plate!


I found some cool graffiti art on our way to Pancakes in Paradise. One of my favourite pieces of art is graffiti and street art, they're so vibrant and interesting. The other things we did that day was a quick trip to the Pacific Fair Mall, and a long and peaceful trip around the Gold Coast on a bus.



Finally, to finish up our first week in Queensland, we went back to Dreamworld to go on the rides we didn't get to go on. We went on the Cyclone, Escape from Madagascar, Rocky Hollow Log Ride, Ogre-Go-Round, Tail Spin, the Claw, and the Wipeout again. They were excellent!



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So, that was all about my first week in Queensland. I've had so much fun, it's been so relaxing just shopping, floating in the pool, but it's also been excilirating, especially on all of the rides I went on!

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I think this has been one of my longest blogposts yet!
Expect an even longer post next week ;-)


Thanks for reading!
See you next Sunday,
- Ellie xo

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4 comments:

  1. The photos are beautiful! What a way to spend the holidays! :) -lily (time_for_a_teaparty)

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  2. Love this post so much!! Your pictures are gorgeous! And this place looks awesome xoxo

    https://www.bloglovin.com/people/lois65-13118731

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