Sightseeing at Gold Coast, Australia

Cool uncle ready start the tour

This is gonna be my last post on Gold Coast, I promise :) 

Last but definitely not the least, we spent some time sightseeing around Surfers Paradise and the nearby areas. Gold Coast offers a large array of tours to choose from, with many of the tour offices located in the mid of Surfers Paradise. We just picked one from the many brochures we collected, gave 'em a call and they'd come fetch us on the planned day. Aside from the tour, we also took the time exploring on our own... by taking the bus and walking around town. Some places not to be missed in Gold Coast... 

Whale Watching at Gold Coast, Australia

Truthfully, I didn't give whale watching a thought before visiting Gold Coast. Well, I did some reading on it while preparing for the trip, and I was sure it came up while discussing with my travelmates. I didn't exactly remember how we came to agreement to do this, but I'm glad that we did. 

A view at the wharf

We were early, and spent some time waiting

Movie World

We embarked early on our journey to the Warner Brothers Movie World. We were super excited, and the fun began almost immediately!

the Main Street where the Star Parade takes place

Sea World

Gold Coast is very much known for its theme parks. Some of the popular ones are the Sea World, Movie World, Wet 'n' Wild, and Dreamworld. It's a good idea to visit the online websites of these parks (i.e. myfun and dreamworld) and check out the ticket offers they sometimes give. Also, there are combo passes which are more economical than individual tickets. I'm telling you the tickets are not cheap!

Limited by the duration of our trip, we managed to visit Sea World and Movie World. Actually, one of my travel buddies would very much like to include Dreamland into our list but there's no package that combine these 3 parks into one pass. Oh well....maybe next time ;-) 

As one would normally expect, marine attractions are the major part of the Sea World. There were penguins, polar bears, aquariums, dolphins and many more.

A must take shot

   

Shopping at Gold Coast, Australia

Our first stop was outlet shopping mall at Harbour Town. This was indeed a shopping  attraction to both locals and tourists. There were many cool stuffs at fairly reasonable prices; I got my Levi's and my friends got some Fossils :D 

Gold Coast, Australia

Background: Gold Coast is a city situated in Queensland, Australia. It is the southernmost city of the state, being 100km south of Brisbane and bordering New South Wales, 900km north of Sydney.* Gold Coast is a well-known tourist attraction, the most popular being the theme parks e.g. Sea World, Movie World. Other attractions include the zoos full of Australian local inhabitants and the sea with waves perfect for surfing.

How's the weather: Gold Coast has a sub-tropical climate with plenty of sunshine (average of 300 days in a year). The summer temperature is 19-29 degrees Celsius and winter 9-21 degrees Celsius.* 

I went there in October during the spring/summer time (note that Australia is in the southern hemisphere) and the weather was slightly colder than our normal days in Malaysia. It was windy and raining some time of the days. On sunny days you would enjoy the cool breeze but the sunburn could be more intense.