Gold Coast

Sun, beaches, and fun is what Gold Coast can be described as.

Located in Queensland on the New South Wales border, and an hour drive from Brisbane (Queensland’s capital city), the Gold Coast is renowned world wide for its beautiful beaches, theme parks and subtropical rainforests.

Tourists of all age groups visit the gold coast. For the young, it offers hundreds of kilometres of ocean strips, with few beaches known to provide pleasure to surfers and to people seeking sunshine.

The most popular beach stretch in the Gold Coast is Surfers Paradise. Surfers Paradise, as the name suggests is the Mecca for surfers. Ideally located only hours drive from the Coolangatta airport, it is an easily accessible holiday spot.

Surfers Paradise provides holiday accommodation to millions of tourists every year. Accommodation ranges from backpackers hostels to five-star hotels. Many tourists, however, prefer the option of staying at one of many self-catered apartment blocks.

These apartments, hostels and hotels share a shopping strip next to the main beach. Paradise Centre, located on the main shopping street Cavil Avenue, has something for everyone. Designer outlets for shopping enthusiasts, pubs and eating joints at every third door and with a world famous beach only 100 metres away, provides a festival like atmosphere that is hard to find anywhere else in the world.  

Surfers Paradise also host art and craft market every Friday night along the front esplanade of the beach.

On the South of Surfers Paradise is another holiday option, the Broadbeach. Broadbeach offers visitors shopping area along the beach which is an experience in itself. Family with children don’t have to worry about walking along while taking care of the young ones as there is a children play equipment and fairground rides that run every day of the year.

Broadbeach is also home to Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club where the annual Australian Surf Lifesaving Titles are held.

Further south of Broadbeach is another tourist place called Burleigh Heads. Burleigh Heads offers tourist attractions such as headland cliff and the Burleigh Head National Park.

Gold Coast is host to world famous theme parks, a major attraction for all the age groups, except for the light hearted of course. Warner Bros. has 3 theme parks in the gold Coast: Sea World, Movie World, and the Wet‘n’Wild. These theme parks are in addition to Dreamworld and the Whitewater World.

Seaworld is one of its kind theme parks. Shows are held everyday involving dolphins, seals, sharks and Polar Bears. The dolphin show in particular is the most attractive one as rated by the tourists. Seaworld also has ski presentations, pirate shows, water rides, rollarcoasters and family ground for visitors to relax and enjoy the experience properly.

Tourist looking for accommodation option near Seaworld can consider award winning Sea World Nara resort which is connected to the theme park through a monorail.

Movie World, with the inspiration from Hollywood is a theme park based on the movie industry. It offers rides based on famous characters from the movies, such as Superman, Batman, Scooby Doo etc. The theme park also conducts movies related stunt shows and behind the scenes tours.  

Wet'n'Wild is the Australia’s largest water theme park. It offers the fun and excitement of the world's latest slides and pools. This theme park has now opened up a few innovative water rides such as Kamikaze and Surfrider.

Dreamworld theme park is Australia’s largest theme park in size and number of rides and attractions. It has rides to suit all tastes. Its rides are divided into thrill rides, family rides and kids rides. One of the thrill rides is “the giant drop” which is the apparently the closest thing to sky diving.

Dreamworld also offers other attractions such as IMAX theatre, Nickelodeon Central, V8 Supercar redline (virtual V8 supercars experience) etc.

The other theme park in the Gold Coast is the Whitewater world. This theme park too is by Dreamworld and as the name suggests, most of its attractions are water related. Whitewater world is very popular with the families as it offers many rides for the kids and grown up alike. Few of its famous rides are “The BRO”, “The Green Room” and “The RIP”.

Although the beaches and the theme parks are the main attraction for people coming to the gold coast, the place has much more to offer.

If you want to stay away from the water and the beaches, you can head inland and see a totally different world unfold in front of you. Inland Gold Coast offers lush rainforests, national parks and picturesque villages. You also come across spectacular views on your journey inland.

Being very well connected to Brisbane and via a motorway, Gold Coast is also a very sensible base for your Queensland holiday.