It was also a very good excuse to get out of Dodge for a couple of days, even though for some reason I cried when I said goodbye to the boys. What is up with that?
Anyway, driving from the airport into the the centre of town, many memories came flooding back. You see it has been ages since I have visited this part of the world, a part of the world where the summers of my youth was spent.
Each summer, my Dad would book some accommodation on the Gold Coast, and like thousands of Australians, we would flock here for a fortnight of fun. It was back in the day when flying the family up would cost some serious coin. Flying into the Gold Coast was for fancy people, like The Bonds, or Dr Edelsten and his teenaged bride Leanne.
We would get the bus up.
And when you were 12, a bus trip from Sydney to the Gold Coast sitting in between your sulking teenaged sister and your vomitty little brother for hours and hours and hours and hours, was my idea of hell.
But we would get excited when the scenery outside started to change and the glamorous signs began to appear on the roads, and by the time we hit Magic Mountain, well we were all quite beside ourselves with glee.
Summers on the Goldie were long, hot and sunburned. No one can deny the beach here is almost perfection. I would read my Dolly Magazine in the sun, literally marinated in Reef Oil with zero sun factor protection. I would watch the bosomy young ladies in string bikinis go and get oil sprayed all over them by pervy old men, and look down at my chest, praying and willing for some boob growth.
I so wanted to be like them.
After a day of baking myself to a crisp, I would be forced to lie in the couch in agony, as Dad would slice up tomatoes and cover the worst on the sunburn in them. The coolness of the tomatoes were supposed to act as some sort of relief, but in reality it just mixed in with the oil and cooked a bit. You could have added a little fetta and olives, and you would have had yourself a nice greek salad.
He would chastise me for being an idiot, I would agree with him before doing it all over again the next day.
I think the Gold Coast very much enjoyed the 80's, as it was during this glamorous era the a game changer rolled into town in the shape of Jupiter's Casino!
People would fly up to this magical beach side location and them lock themselves in dark rooms. Dad would pop over and have a punt on occasion and if there was a win, he would take us out to Sizzlers!
After two weeks of suntanning myself, squabbling with my siblings, eating prawns, reading about all the exciting antics from Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield (why Liz just didn't punch Jess in the head I'll never understand... TODD!) and wishing for boobs, we would all pack up and get on the bus and pass the Pink Poodle Motel on the way out of town.
The Gold Coast has changed a bit since those heady days. There is much construction taking place, with developers aggressively trying to out glitz each other, desperate to compete with cheap overseas destinations.
But if you look beyond the bulldozers and safety fences, cranes and crap, you can still see the essence of a place that for thousands of kids, just like me, will forever have nothing but fond memories of summer on the Goldie.
Did you ever holiday here as a kid?
What are your fondest memories?
And as far as praying for boobs, well someone was listening and granted me a set, and them some. x
