kozaru

We were married on Valentine’s Day 1998. This year, we finally got our shit together enough to organise a weekend away.
We were going to visit Tasmania, and travel by boat (overseas!!), but we left booking too long to get a good cabin for an overnight trip, or good seats for a day trip. We figured Tasmania wasn’t going to float any further away than it is now, not significantly anyway, so we looked north to Queensland.
Virgin Blue provided the flights, and a trip to lastminute got us some accommodation. Here’s the timeline.

13th Feb
0230 Wake up, shower, dress.

0310 Drive to airport parking

0400 Arrive at airport parking, check in car, wait for bus
note that another couple leaving at the same time as us and coming back on the same night have 1 large suitcase a backpack and a carry bag. Each. We had 1 handbag, 1 backpack and a 12kg case.

0415 Arrive at airport, queue up to check our bag

0425 Check bag. Agree with sourfaced virgin blue attendant’s silent protest that 4 in the morning is too fucking early.

0435 Glance at international, no coffee. Follow signs to domestic terminal promising “Cafes”.

0437 Pass through security after flashing my belt and assuring that no, I don’t have a laptop in that bag.

0438 Get tagged for the bomb sniffing/drug sniffing wand. Assure security it’s fine, just swipe me. No I don’t want to read the card, just swipe me. Yes I’m sure just swipe me. I swear to God if you keep me from coffee much longer I’ll… oh sorry, you meant that compartment of the bag. http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9018723313

0439 Clean bill of health. Head for coffee.

0440 No coffe.

0441 Check again. Still no coffee places open.

0442 For Cinos’ Sake, if they have flights at this hour of the morning WHY IS THERE NO COFFEE??

0443 Still no coffee, nor caffeinated beverage vending machines.

0445 Consider staging a hijack attempt. I bet they serve coffee in prison.

0530 Boarding shortly. There will be coffee on board.

0553 Approximately 600 Asians turn up to cram onto the flight, coughing and sneezing the whole time. Reconsider hijack attempt.

0555 Duckfat.

0600 Boarding.

0605 Seats smaller than I remember, and closer together.

0610 Rubbing hips with woman next to me. Will need to keep my arms crossed the whole flight.

0617 Takeoff!

0630 Turbulence!

0640 Coffee!

0641 TURBULENCE!!!!
Trying to re-fasten seatbelt while avoiding turbulent coffee and without elbowing lady next to me in the head.

0700 Set watch back an hour to 0600 QLD time

0600 – 0710 Turbulence.

0715 Land. Hard.

0725 Exit the plane and walk through Gold Coast Airport.
Gold Coast Airport arrival/departure looks like a foodcourt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

0730 Collect bag. Ours was the 2nd one on the conveyor. WIN!

0735 Taxi to Hotel.

0750 Present at Hotel reception with intention of storing bags until listed check-in time of 2pm
“Oh, your room is ready now if you’d like?” YES PLEASE!! WIN!! http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9026632202

0810-0900 Naptime

0915-1015 Buffet breakfast! unlimited bacon, unlimited coffee.
Caffeinated, Baconated, Happynated http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9028651454, http://twitter.com/lbmfg/status/9028454547

1020-1130 Decide what to do next. Decide on visiting Currumbin.

1130 Go outside hotel to find the bus stop, turn left to cross the road cos I’m sure I saw the buses over there.

1145 After walking the block find the fucking bus stop on the fucking footpath outside the fucking hotel if I’d fucking turned right.

1145-1205 Ride the bus to Currumbin, approximately 300 meters past the stop when the bus driver realised we were still on the bus and he hadn’t told us that were at Currumbin.

1205-1215 300 meter walk in 60% humidity to get to Currumbin
Also feel very sorry for the people working in the surf shop that shares a building with the honey factory which has external speakers playing a song about their honey over and over and over.

1215-1235 Queue up to pay to get into the wildlife sanctuary.

1235-1645(approx) Currumbin.
Various animals viewed, factoids gleaned, swoopings…uh.. swooped. Also the biggest fucking croc I have ever seen.
http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9040455975, http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9041053129, http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9042097084, http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9042159094

1730 Order Room Service.

1820 Eat room service http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9051625592

2100 (approx) Head down to the hotel bar for a cocktail.
Amit the bartender was very happy to make a Martini for my wife, and pour a Glenfiddich for me, but would not budge on a Bloody Mary for another cutomer cos “It’s not on the cocktail list”. We like Amit :)

2200 Head back upstairs, watch some TV, go to sleep

14th Feb
0700 Wake up. Go back to sleep.

0710 Wake up, go back to sleep

0720 till 0820 Same as above

0830 Champagne on the balcony, Happy Anniversary :) http://twitter.com/lbmfg/status/9072533511

0923 Non-smoking, huh? http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9072494741

0945 Cutting it fine for Buffet Breakfast. Almost missed out on eggs. Fresh bacon tho, so, you know, win.
Both of us make a conscious decision to leave phones in the room.

1100 Beach!
Water so warm, around 20-22 degrees I think. Waves were fun :) Feeling something stingy on my arm notsomuch, but it went away so that’s another win. Was certainly not excruciating pain so I wasn’t worried.

1300 Hotel Spa

1340 Back in the room to decide on lunch. Had a beer in Horizons restaurant instead, decide to come back for dinner cos of the seafood. Organise late checkout for the next day (1300)

1430 Naptime http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9086007719

1630 – 1730 Go shopping for a dress. Not for me. Figuring out that we didn’t bring enough clothes.

1800 Dress bought, dinner sought. Nice table in a corner. Again remark on how cheap the food is, and how cheap the alcohol is.

2030 Walk around Twin Towns Services Club to what’s what on a Sunday night. Find a live band, have a drink, decide to come back.

2130 Head to hotel bar for another Amit Brand (C) Martini. See no Amit. Use convenience of hotel room to pee in a clean environment.

2145 Head back to hotel bar. Still no Amit. Find out last drinks was 10 minutes ago… Yes, hotel bar shut at 10pm.

2200 Back to the band. Many ginnintonix and ouigsian drys consumed. Floor show best part. I mean, the people on the dance floor.
There was another couple celebrating their anniversary, 10 years, they loudly declared. She was a very enthusiastic singer and dancer, more so with every Pina Colada.
This song:

Was sang. Twice. With Pina Colada lady joining in the chorus “AND THE OPERATOR SAID 40 CENTS MORE FOR THE NEXT! THREE! MINUTES!”. Every. Single. Time. While holding up 2 fingers for the Three Minutes part, in 5 pack a day vocals.
Then there were the Rock-N-Roll dancers. We now think, from observation, that there is one dance school in the Twin Towns area, and it teaches precisely 3 moves. Cos that’s all they were doing. There was another couple there, we’ll call them “Sparkly Dress” who would often fight about a step on the dancefloor, move off, practice, and return to wow the audience. Then there was the competition between sparkly dress, LBD and casual couple. At one point they were twirling at precisely the same moments.
The best dancer was a girl, or her own with uh.. “learning difficulties”? I guess. She was “bumping” with herself and twirling with herself and clearly having a ball. Everyone else was just far too serious, as evidenced by sparkly dress’ partner nearly slipping a disc trying to emulate Casual Couple doing an inverted, suspended dip.

2315 Band says “we have time for a couple more songs, we finish at 11:30″
They finish when???

2335 Band finishes, house lights come on, GTFO.

2345 Back to the room cos there’s nothing else to do.
http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9098359874

15th Feb
0900 Wake up, dress, lament lack of clean clothes, breakfast.
http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9114829256

1100 Decide to wander through shops. Realise something wasn’t right with last nights prawns

1200 Get call from Virgin Blue. They need to change the plane, do I want to volunteer to switch flights? No.

1300 Back in room, winding up for checkout, using facilities to full effect thanks to last nights chowder. Did not become todays chunder which is, you know, a plus. Having serious concerns about my ability to sit on a plane at this point.

1301 Check out, check bags, order cab for 1530, back Horizons for a sit down.

1320 – 1520 Sit, quiet and still, sipping beer. It helps. http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9126210037, http://twitter.com/lbmfg/status/9127432978

1530 Cab to airport, check in at airport, get decent seats. (Earlier web-checkin provided 2 aisle seats)

1600 – 1615 Attempt to find last minute gifts that a) Say “Gold Coast” and b) Don’t suck. This proves nigh on impossible.

1645 Boarding time. Plane’s late, 20 minutes.
http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9130607288
http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9130832858

1710 Boarding.

1715 (QLD) – 2030 (Melb) Flight. Not a lot of turbulence, but the guy weaved a lot. Left a bit of the tail on the runway. Apparently had already happened to the engine. http://twitter.com/nemesisau/status/9134544868

So, all in all a very nice weekend. Accommodation was awesome. Food was great (except for dodgy prawn). People were lovely.

Here’s the photo set on Flickr

We’ll be back, Coolangatta, just you wait.