I always wanted to be in some new place for every New Year's Eve Party. Road trip was one plan, Me and couple of my roommates in Adelaide wanted to go, but never got a common break from work. Somehow, three of us made up our minds and blindly took a break for New Year Party and decided to travel but not known where to. Those two proposals combined, we planned a roadtrip to Gold Coast, a place which was on my wishlist, 2100kms from Adelaide.
As it was fairly a long ride, we wanted a bigger vehicle though it was only 3 of us. So, we hired a VolvoXC60 from EuropCar. I must admit that we hired it for a real bargain, $745AU for 5 days!
The outback roads were a pleasure to drive this beast of a car. Comfort Luxury and Drive assistance were impeccable. Anyone's recommendation would be to have a good vehicle for long rides and I felt we did it the best possible way.
Frequent breaks are a mandatory thing when it comes to long drives. You do come across lot of Speed cams, Average speed cams and also cops on the side of the roads with speed guns. So, never think that you could speed your way through.
After over a day of driving, we were exhausted to every bit on reaching Gold Coast. So many things to see and activities to be done, as it always happens, nobody was sure where and what to start. I had already performed my Skydive, at SAskydiving, So other mate of mine booked for a dive at Goldcoastskydive and he said it was some view from 12000ft of the surroundings. It costed him about $375AU for the dive and $100AU for the soft copy of pictures and video. A bit on the expensive side but it is worth the money
We then found ourselves a good viewing spot, before people started to gather in scores, to witness the fireworks, and bid goodbye to 2016.
So, we had a full days time to plan our things-to-do list. First we headed to the SkyPoint. There needs a booking to be done in case you are interested to take a walk in the open air at the highest point in Gold Coast.
We then took a stroll on Surfers Paradise Blvd to have something to eat and then headed to a mall nearby. There we came across an information centre and were randomly browsing to see if we were missing out on anything. You can easily spot them and these are the places were you get great deals on Theme parks and heap loads of other activities for a dime. We purchased a $100AU ticket each which provides single entry to any three theme parks and has a validity for 7 days. If you chose to directly enter it would cost you at least $100AU for any of those parks.
You could get all the photos capturing those wild, crazy, frightening or surprised expressions of you and your mates while on the ride. All you have to do is get yourself a tag, select the photos at the photo store after each ride, and before you exit the park get them emailed or printed for a cost. The best part is that you could use the same tag ID for all the other parks as well that you would visit - Great! isn't it?
After WB Movie World, I wanted to visit an old friend of mine from Adelaide, now settled in Brisbane and would also get the chance to check out another major Australian metropolitan. It was an hour drive from Gold Coast. Late in the night, was able to reach him on his mobile and we caught up at his place., and then later went for a night ride around Brisbane.
Soon, time would arrive for the Sun to rise, so we headed to Mt.Coot-Tha, for witnessing Sun rise over this beautiful city. My mates who travelled from Adelaide, wanted to get some rest., so we, me my mate and his cousin, left them to get some sleep while the other bunch headed to Mt.Coot-Tha.
After an eventful day that I never saw the end of, my next day had already begun to beautiful view of the city, elucidating itself to a cloudy morning sunrise, atop of the hill.
What's going to happen when crazy friends meet even crazier ones? You guessed right - instant plans, abrupt change of schedule and going in to do anything with whatever that comes to mind without any hesitation. Though there was no sleep for two others apart from me, all five of us booked in for Scuba diving, $100AU each, in spite of being precarious of the time on hand to reach back to Gold Coast. Somehow, we made it to the location and headed to another adventure on this trip with two new entrants.
Though we enjoyed taking a dive underwater, first time for all five of us, the underwater view and the overall experience haven't really met our expectations with which we eagerly booked in to do this bit. People have recommended, a well known fact, that The Great Barrier Reef is the best place to get underwater. My later thought was - 'May be, next time.'.
We wanted to visit Sea World, first when we reached Gold Coast on day 2. So now we just had enough time to check that out, before we start our long ride back to Adelaide. My mates had to return home and so we dropped them off at a railway station nearby, so they could catch a train back to Brisbane. Then we headed straight to SeaWorld, listed in our 7 day pass.
Just including a couple of snaps from a few that we shot. As this was our last evening and a final stop, soon after which we would have to start to burn all the roads heading to Adelaide.
Just as the sun disappeared into the West, we got some dinner, refuelled the gas, and headed back to where we started from, 4 days ago.
It was a stormy and rainy last night as we left. But, managed to get past that phase and after rest here and there and some pit stops, we finally entered South Australia. As we got closer and closer to our home, Adelaide, we were feeling more and more accomplished to have completed this extraordinary trip.
After an intense 5 days of travelling for about 4600kms, visiting new places, meeting old mates, new experiences and adventures, we have completed a trip that was never to be forgotten and I could only imagine a handful of people to have gone about to do something like this.
We reached home, safe and sound, to capture our accomplishment.
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