A strange place, that felt like the Southern Hemisphere’s answer to the south of Spain with added theme parks, Surfers Paradise wasn’t really for me, but there were a few things of interest. I went for a work team event back in October 2010, quite scary how quickly a decade can go by!
I was lucky enough to stay in Q1, a 322m high skyscraper that was the tallest residential building in the world from 2005 to 2011, now only the ninth tallest. There is a lookout at the top but the views from my room were impressive enough. The canals are mostly man made to create upmarket residential developments.
A main attraction of Surfers Paradise is the epic beach, which has voted one of the best in the world. It’s certainly an impressive stretch of sand, and was a great place to go running other than at dusk when spotting sandpits dug by kids proved challenging, and resulted in a few near misses.
Surfers Paradise’s surreal stretch of tall buildings by the beach was most obviously seen from the water. It was pretty average for fishing, but we did have a dolphin visit.
For lunch one day we headed to McLarens Landing on South Stradbroke Island, a purpose built eco tourism facility which apparently has been derelict since 2018, falling into ruin in the aftermath of vandalism, drug overdoses and fraud charges!
To finish with a colourful sunset…
