Day 1- Gold Coast

Day 1 - 4 Dec 08


I have wanted to write about my family trip to Gold Coast but I was quite lazy to get started. It was a 7 days trip so I will have a long, long list to go.


Checking in at T3

We departed from Singapore Changi Airport (T3) on 3 Dec 08, a Wednesday night. We had bought tickets on economy class but had used the Krisflyer points to redeem for biz class seats. The kids were really excited about the trip and me too! That was because I was the one doing most of the planning on the itinerary and accommodation.

Inside T3. A photo taken with some effect by Andy Chan.

Jovan enjoying inflight entertainment by SQ.

Day 1 – 4 Dec 08, Thursday

Yeah!!! We arrived at Brisbane airport!!!

We arrived Brisbane on 4 Dec 08. First thing after we check out from the immigration counter, we went to pick up our car. We had decided to rent a MPV although there are only 4 of us. :P

Even though we didn’t sleep well on the plane, none of us dozed off during 2 hours journey to our 1st destination, Mt. Nathan Winery. We arrived at the place in the afternoon. Their show just ended with the tour group earlier so we didn’t get a chance to see how they brew the wine. We just walked around the farm, took some pictures and also bought wine and honey. Then we left the place.

Outside Mt. Nathan Winery

Grapes for wine.

Barrels for the wine.

With GPS, Andy decided to roam around the area and he saw “playground”. He selects, and off we go. Who knows, there isn’t any playground but just a big, big field. Still, we got down from the car and walked around. We bumped into a couple and they show us to a stream. They have 2 friendly, old dogs. The dogs were so friendly that they had frightened the kids. After playing at the stream, we went to the field to run about.

We were at the stream. Andy didn't managed to help me capture the pic with the doggy :(((



The big , big field I mentioned.

As it is the 1st day and I supposed we will be suffering from jet lag, I had planned the day to be very relax. So Andy check on GPS again and we went driving around. “Dou Dou Feng”

The same chair I took a pic for Louise about 4 years back...

Dinner at Hog's Breath. Andy ordered this.

I ordered lamb rib.

Jovan ordered a burger. I can't help but to take pic of how he eat his dinner. He makes the food looks yummy!

Louise ordered chicken nuggets. She had finished her food and was playing with the mini umbrella.

At about 4pm, we check in to our hotel, Courtyard by Marriott. Well, we were pretty tired by then. We just settled our dinner at Hog’s Breath. After dinner, we went jalan, jalan around Surfer’s Paradise. Shop! Shop! Shop!

Louise & Jovan tickling each other outside a shop while we were all waiting for Andy.

Day 2 - Gold Coast

Day 2 - 5 Dec 08

On the 2nd day, our 1st destination was to visit Paradise Country. I wanted my kids to be exposed to animals as they get very little chance to play with them. We kind of had a hard time looking for the place as it is not very popular. Also, it is kind of hidden behind Movie World & Australian Outback Spectacular.

Paradise Country

Picture with the Koalas :))) They are so CUTE!

Jovan is very sporting and he was so game to bottle feed the sheep.

Photo taken with the crews. The cups kiddos are holding is fresh milk. Very yummy. They baked very delicious bread too!

The lambs are all very dei dei. Look at the lamb laying so comfy in Andy's arms. Now I know why my little lamb is so dei!

Adventerous Jovan in act again. This time he is milking the cow!

Show time! Shearing the sheep coat.

After the tour there, we went to Super Bee Honey World. We were supposed to go there on day 1 but we didn’t manage to make it. I am glad we went cos it is interesting and educational for the children. Oh yes! They have a very interesting parrot too! His name is Chuckle and he talks! :o)

He is showing how they get the honey from the bees. He also explained how they have different flavour for the honey.

The machine behind Louise is what they used to spin the honey out from the honey wax.

Australian likes to start their day early so that they could end early. After the tour at Honey Bee World, it was only about 4.30pm but they are going to end their day of work soon. However, Andy insisted to go Pacific Fair to shop around. We reached there around 5.00pm and most of the shops were either closed or going to close. We only managed to spend about 1 hour there before proceeding back to hotel.

Taken at Pacific Fair.

We went back to our hotel to change and proceed for dinner. Again, using GPS we searched for our dinner place. I chanced upon this place called Peter’s Wharf but it was closed when we reached there. In the end, we settled our dinner “next door” at a restaurant cum pub cum bar place.

Me, enjoying an ice cold beer. Their local brand, VB.

Jovan's new found love.... Calamari.

Nice view out there :)

Day 3 - Gold Coast

Day 3 - 6 Dec 08

Today is our 3rd day in Gold Coast. As far we have enjoyed ourselves a lot. I guess Andy enjoyed “playing” with the GPS the most. My kids could even mimic the voice of the GPS. HAHAHA!!!

Day 3 in our itinerary is to go to Sea World. Sea World is also the closet to our hotel. We had our breakfast just across the street. The food wasn’t fantastic and pretty expensive. Andy as usual, face black black when you don’t do things his way. He wanted to have breakfast else where. So he started picking on us during breakfast. :S

We just arrived at SeaWorld, they are not operating yet... There were many people waiting outside just like us.

Anyway, everything was ok when we reached Sea World. We were too early, the gate will open only at 10am. We started roaming around and we saw this place where you could board the helicopter. We went in to enquire, hoping that we could save some time by going for helicopter ride first. Well, there isn’t a short cut. L We still have to wait…

We were bored so we started walking around the compound. We happened to see the helicopter ride office and went there to check it out.

Pic taken nearby the helicopter operating office. It was very windy there.

They started selling the entrance tickets at about 9.30am. We bought the combo passes the day before, so we were luck that we need not join in the long queue. We proceed for our helicopter ride. Before that, we passed by the pelicans, they stink! Jovan was so reluctant to take the pic. After the helicopter ride, we tour around Sea World. We also went to the water theme park inside Sea World. That’s when my xiao jie, Louise picked up the courage to go for the rest of the thrill rides!

I guess from this pic, you can tell Jovan is so turn-off by the smell of the pelicans!

Cool! The helicopter is coming. Quick snap a pic!

We were inside the helicopter and all gear up!

You didn't see wrongly, the kiddos were sitting infront. Due to weight distribution, kiddos had to sit in front. Bravo!

Below are some nice pics taken from the bird eye view!

Bird eye view of Sea World.

Our hotel is in the middle...

Kiddos can't get over with helicopter. Jovan was upset because he had the whole helicopter on his own initially till the attendance asked him to share as the were more kids coming in.

Louise doing her spray on tattoo.

Jovan was crying when he was doing the sray on tattoo. He said its pain. Wait till he does the real tattoo and he will know what pain is like! Haha!

Well... shark bay. :P Its a pity that I forgot to take a pic of the shark eggs. You can actually feel and hold the shark egg as long as you leave them inside the water.

Louise took the log-ride with Andy. Jovan chicken out and I was with him outside.

Brave Louise... but she is still afraid of dark. Trill ride, she is ok. So strange.

We went to the water theme park in SeaWorld to soak ourselves. Louise enjoyed the thrill ride so much!

So much of fun, time to pack up and go for dinner.

After spending almost the whole day in Sea World, we proceeded to Peter Wharf’s for dinner. Remember, we wanted to try it out on day 2 but it was closed. Peter Wharf’s is very close to Sea World. Ya… just a stone throw away. Inside there, you need to pick your own fish or seafood that you wanted to have. When you pay, they will help you to cook and a queue number will be given to you. Australian loves fried food, so all the fishes we chose got fried! Jovan was very tired by the time the food was done. He almost fell asleep on the table when eating the fries. Over there, there were birds preying on your food, so we really have got to guard our food well. Mmh… you call it “having dinner close to the nature”??? hahahah!!!

We went to Peter's Wharf for dinner as we didn't managed to go the day before. Jovan was very tired by then and he almost fell asleep eating his fries! HAHAHA!

We were having fun choosing the fish (or food) that we wanted to eat. I was hold a lobster on my right hand and it only cost us about SGD40+. SO SO CHEAP!

As the next day was Jovan’s birthday, Andy brought us to dou feng again. This time was to hunt for a cake. The shops closed real early. Most of the bakery was closed by the time we reached there. We only managed to find Baskin Robins. Greedy Jovan chose a 1 kg ice-cream cake. @@

The ice-cream cakes were very nice. Jovan was having a hard time deciding on which cake. In the end, he insisted on having a 1kg ice-cream cake! :S

We all had our eyes on this cake but too bad it was already taken. Its for Poppy.

Andy was very keen to try the food and he went next door to "ta pao" from Noodle Box. Look at the package, its so cute!

And it looks even more cute with Andy holding it! HEE~

The cake was melting fast! By the time we reached the hotel, the outer layer was already melting. We quickly set up everything for our celebration. After all the singing and etc, we started eating the cake of course. The cake is so huge that we ate till we wanted to vomit! We can’t keep the cake cos the freezer in our hotel is too small. What a pity. L

This was the cake we bought in the end... I brought those candles from Singapore.

Jovan was very happy with his cake and the candles. :))

In case you wonder why not all of us were looking at the camera, that is because we brought 2 cameras there. :P And I chose this pic because I look better in this pic than the other. :P

Can you tell the cake was melting fast?

We were struggling to eat as much as we could. Jovan was of course happy because no restrict to the amount of ice-cream he can eat!