Gold Coast 2015, July 04 (The GC)

The Gold Coast long weekend adventure started with a 7am drive to the airport, this time there was space left in the main long term car park, so there was no trouble with the shuttle bus like last time. On board the flight the recently advertised Virgin Australia complimentary snack was a coconut bun, very small but tasty enough. The "entertainment app" you have to install on your own devices was a waste of time, nothing worth watching in the TV section, the movies were more recent but there wasn't really enough time for one, so I just watched "The Cube" on my tablet instead, since my iriver mp3 player I've had for over 10 years suddenly got stuck with the locked button permanently on.

At the Gold Coast airport I picked up a Go Card for $10 (refundable) with $20 credit, so it's better than Myki already. We caught the express bus up to Broadbeach South then switched over to the tram to get to Surfers Paradise. Along the way there was lots of shops scattered just off the highway, which kind of reminded me of LA a bit. We stopped off at La Porchetta in Surfers Paradise for a pizza lunch, as some of the other locations I had written down further north in Southport weren't open for lunch on the weekend, not sure why.

Surfers Paradise central.

After lunch it was back on the tram down to the Gold Coast Convention Centre, where they had some young girls cheerleader event but more importantly the bib collection and expo for tomorrow's Gold Coast airport marathon (and half marathon event that doesn't go near the airport). The expo was about the same as every other one, a mixture of running clothes and energy food and drinks on sale, but I didn't find anything to buy. I did get a flyer for a Queenstown marathon in November which might be worth looking into.

Expo.

It was just time for hotel check-in, so another convenient tram ride to Surfers Paradise North stopped just outside the hotel. The room we got was spacious but it was on the ground floor - I didn't even know hotels had rooms on the ground floor. The TV only had about five Foxtel channels like usual, but three were sports at least.

After a quick break at the hotel I headed over to see what the great Surfers Paradise had to offer. Starting down Cavill Mall I ended up at the beach quite soon, it was a little cold and windy in the shade so I didn't stay around for long. I had a further look around the Esplanade and Surfers Paradise Boulevard, which was predominately made up of surf shops and restaurants. I found a souvenir shop with a rubber magnet, which was the main goal for the day.

Surfers Paradise central beach.

Not wanting to eat a big dinner the night before the race we just went to Coles for some bread, drinks and fruit for the evening and then headed back to the hotel. Because I've been dealing with serious foot pain (and been unable to run at all) for the last week I decided to take the tram for one stop instead of walking another 10-15 minutes - the time between the stops was a little more than 60 seconds and cost $2.50 - that's boulevard robbery!

So that was it for the day, back at the hotel I got to see Carlton lose again in the evening AFL match while resting up for an early morning.