Boots on the Beach

Queensland. Days 2 and 3.
Tuesday, when we woke up, Sarah and I headed to a suburb on the Gold Coast called Surfer's Paradise. I'd seen the sign for it on the highway and asked about it, but Sarah said it was kind of seedy with lots of night clubs and we would not be going there. However, our friends Angela ("Ang", with the J sound, not like Ang Lee the guy behind Brokeback) and Carmela were also in Gold Coast for a few days and they said I needed to see it. Once we all met up, we walked around Surfer's and shopped a little. Then, we drove about 2 minutes to Broad Beach (I didn't even know we'd left Surfer's) and got Japanese take-away for lunch and ate on the boardwalk.
I would just like to say that, unlike my friend Phillip, I was able to eat the ENTIRE meal with just chopsticks... rice and everything! Oh yeah. That in itself is an accomplishment people. After lunch on the beach, I went with Ang and Carmela to do some more shopping. That night we had dinner at Ang's parents' house. Dinner was delicious and it was really good to eat a home-cooked meal with a family for the first time in a while. That night, Ang, Carmella, and I went to see Knight and Day. First of all, Australian movie theaters are ridiculously nice and the one we went to had assigned seating... weird. Either way, the movie was good. It made me like Tom Cruise again and forget for an hour and a half that he's a raving lunatic.
On Wednesday, Sarah and I went to Burleigh Heads and walked a trail along the cliffs at the beach. Oh. My. Gosh. It was gorgeous. The mountain that Burleigh is on is actually a volcano and all of the rocks on the beach are volcanic ash I guess. It was all so pretty it almost looked fake because you just don't see anything like that in Carolinas. I mean, our beaches are beautiful, but in a completely different way.

I took so many pictures, but you'll just have to check out facebook to see the rest. Once we got back to the parking lot, Sarah got some ice cream and we sat on the rocks and just watched the swimmers and surfers who were brave/crazy enough to get into the cold water. Sarah had to leave to hang out with some friends, so I walked down the beach a bit to meet up with Carmela and Ang again. Ang convinced Carmela and I, pretty easily, to take off our boots and actually put our feet in the water. It was chilly, but it wasn't so bad once you stood there for a while and got used to it. It was also the first time I'd ever touched the Pacific Ocean so that was pretty cool. We had a good time hanging out on the beach, but left after not too long to go to Greenmount Beach. There is another trail along the cliffs there, so we walked along that and watched the sun set. When you get to the top of the trail, you are pretty high above the water AND you are on the Queensland/New South Wales border. I loved it! When we left Greenmount, we picked up 2 more girls and headed to Brisbane for dinner. Ang and Carmela had found this steakhouse type restaurant in another town once at a wedding and fell in love with it. They googled it and discovered that there was one in Brisbane, so we HAD to go since the closest one to Sydney is 3.5 hours away. The restaurant was very similar to something like Logan's or Texas Roadhouse, so I thought it was funny that they were SO obsessed with it! We definitely had an adventure that night and laughed a whole lot. It is so good to be making girl friends that are so much fun to hang out with! Carmela took a bunch of pictures that day, so as soon as I get a chance I'll steal them from her. Here are a few of my pictures from the walk at Greenmount:

 

Two places at once! The blue side is New South Wales, the brownish side is Queensland.

**UPDATE: After consulting a map... Google Maps, to be exact, I have learned that it was NOT the Pacific Ocean that I put my feet it, but the Coral Sea. Oh well...