The Gnome at the Bottom of the Garden

Back in March, I wrote this post, all about my birthday and how I was going to celebrate it. Then I went and celebrated, came home, C7 got sick (and while getting better, is still not fully recovered – but he is back at school) and life just kept happening. So where did I go to celebrate turning 40-ish? I whisked the kidlets and ACW off to the Gold Coast in Queensland.

We flew out of Adelaide on what was a chilly and damp Wednesday morning. We arrived at the airport just in time to find a spot in the long term carpark, check in and grab some breaky to nom on the plane. God bless Virgin Blue for having internet check in. Not only did it speed things up, but we got a whole row of 6 seats for the 4 of us! Yay!!

After arriving at Coolangatta, we caught the shuttle to our resort – and our apartment wasn’t ready. We checked our baggage and went for a walk to discover the local eateries. There were quite a few within spitting distance so we had lunch then found a really nice bakery where we were able to order our lunch for the next day. In fact, they were so good, they made our lunch nearly every day!

Once we had settled in and unpacked, we spent some time exploring the resort and then we decided to go find a few geocaches that were just up the road at Nobbys beach. We rolled up our jeans and walked the 4 kms along the beach at sunset. Having the sun set over the land and not the water was mildly disorientating for this west coast girl, but it was a really pleasant evening – and I didn’t mind the walk one bit.

We made it back in time to have wood fired pizza for tea at the resort. I had no idea that Queenslanders put the sun to bed so early! It was probably only 7pm, but it was dark! An early night was in store for us, which was just as well, because the next morning I found out why all those banana benders go to bed so early…..