Surfers Paradise a.k.a a Schoolies Nightmare

After dropping off our bags in our hostel, Nicola and I fancied exploring Surfers Paradise. The Scouser who picked us up mentioned something about the town being overrun by Schoolies and Nicola had mentioned that this time of year was a popular one for Schoolies too. I’ll admit, I had no idea what a schoolie was, I had just nodded along taking in information and not really processing what it meant. I was about to find out.

The skyline of Gold Coast is impressive, huge high rises situated mere metres from golden sandy beaches. We had thought before we arrived that it looked like a thriving city centre with business. We soon discovered that all the high rises were hotels and the thriving city centre was akin to a Benidorm style city, just substituting old, pink Brits for young, obnoxious Aussies. From what we could work out, a schoolie is essentially a term for children between the ages of say 14 and 18 who are unleashed upon Surfers Paradise to drink and sh*g their way through the school holidays. As you can imagine, it was not what Nicola and I had planned for our trip to the Gold Coast. The two days we spent at the Gold Coast were spent trying to avoid large groups of schoolies who were basically spoilt, rich, obnoxious little sh*ts who their parents were no doubt glad to be rid of for a few weeks. Huge groups of half-clad children carrying crates of beer and shouting and hollering at each other across the road and across restaurants roamed Surfers Paradise. They were even shouting at each other from opposing hotel balconies. To sum it up, it was like Magaluf/Ibiza/Falaraki for 16 year olds; it was awful.

We did make two trips to the beach however, which were amazing. The views were incredible and the sea was refreshing. The sand was white, warm and fine and the sea was yet again a lovely azure blue. The waves were pretty sizeable so we did a bit of body surfing as well as sun bathing so the trip was not a waste. It was a beautiful city but we came at the wrong time of year.

We spent time thinking about what we would do next, we planned out trips down the coast to Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour and priced up greyhound tickets but it all added up to quite a substantial amount. We looked into relocs for another campervan but there were none available. We had a grand plan to campervan it from Cairns all the way down to Sydney but alas, logistically it was not feasible so we booked two plane tickets to Sydney for half the price of greyhound tickets (to all the above destinations plus Sydney) which would also take one hour instead of 16 hours. Our money is starting to run short and we need to find a job lest we be home by January! Sydney seems the most likely destination to get work after we decided against farming due to the heat and the nature of the work. So, Sydney Part II awaits…let the job hunt begin anew.

Family box.... or meal for two??