One Year to Give: Easter on the Gold Coast

Easter Bunny made it to the Gold Coast

Easter was a fun time with family, friends and familiar faces!

We stayed at Main Beach Holiday Park which was a stone's throw from one of the many surf beaches, adjacent to the Southport Surf Life saving Club. The park itself was busy, but set up very well for a fun packed Easter, with easter activities planned throughout the weekend. We participated in the Easter Party on the Saturday night - live music, all you could eat pizza and chicken wings, Easter Bunny and an egg for all the kids and then a movie. Fun and very generous of the management.

If you need to find a good church to go to on the Gold Coast (and it can be tricky!!), go to the Southport Church of Christ. This was huge - excellent preachers, great worship and ran lot's of outreach programs and they certainly served up a memorable Good Friday service. And one of those "coincidency" moments the next morning, when the guy across the road in the caravan opposite us asked Jon if he had enjoyed the good Friday service the day before!? Dale and Deb, and their two children were a lovely christian family, on holiday from Bendigo. We spent a great few hours chatting and sharing with them about our trip, and the stuff they do in Bendigo.

Again and again, we are realizing it's the people encounters on our trip that are some of the most special times!

The cruisin' party! (Wendy and Paul, Rob & Sarosh's friends joined us for easter also, form Port Macquarie)

We hired a self -drive boat and spent an afternoon boating around the Broadwater. We anchored on a shallow bit where we could swim across a bit to Wave Break Island, and some tried snorkelling. Was great fun - and the weather was perfect, as it was until the Monday of the Easter weekend.! The funniest bit was getting pulled over by the water police as we headed back to the mooring at the end of the day. A bit of random breath testing, Gold Coast style! Sarosh was driving, and had luckily only had a couple of light beers during the afternoon - hardly registered, but it was rather amusing.

Random breath testing!

Dreamworld over Easter! What joy!? If I sound a little sarcastic it's because lots of other people were enjoying it the same day we were there! Had a couple of queue waits of an hour or more. However, generally the day was good fun. We all enjoyed the "Cyclone" and by the time we had another visit on the Tuesday when heading out of the the Gold Coast, Jed had managed to fit in what they call the "Big Six" - Tower of Terror, Giant Drop, The Claw, Wipeout, MotoCoaster and The Cyclone!! And we managed a few other fun rides too, and then spent a couple of hours at Wet & Wild just to make sure we were all wet and a bit cold to head home at the end of the day.

" The Cyclone"

My niece Sarah, on the RHS, and friends, filling in time at the 'boring' family BBQ at our caravan park, by stacking any plastic bottles, cups etc they could find. They didn't use the red wine bottle, thankfully!

That bottle of wine was given to us by people we met at Coff's Harbour, who had come to town, from Inverell, after vintage had finished for a well earned holiday. Their winery was called The Thomas Winery after the lady's grandfather, and my dad's name! The muscat they shared around at the BBQ area in Coff's H was nice too! I decided to put the bottle of cab sav away and share it with family at Easter time. It was a good drop!

At the end of the cantilever part of the Treetop Walk at Tamborine Mountain. Jed was threatened with his 'life' if he bounced his auntie or his mother - despite it being against the rules anyway!

We met Rob, Sarosh, Wendy and Paul for lunch at Tamborine and started the weekend off in nice style, with good food and a glass of wine. A very pretty part of the GC Hinterland, with good views from the lookouts of the "sci-fi" built up area on the coast around Surfer's Paradise. Tamborine itself was a bit like Hahndorf, with specialty, arty and foody shops lining the streets.

Jed, who had been itching to do a couple of surf lessons, manged to fulfill this wish in the Gold Coast, with a 2 for 1 special, on lessons run by the SLS Club. The waves weren't fantastic, but good enough for a learner. He even managed to stand up a couple of times. He's on the look out now for a cheap surf board!