Day 10 - Thursday 12th February

Day 10 - Thursday 12th February - I was on the road from Byron Bay shortly after 7am After 6kms the route rejoined the northbound Pacific Highway, a dual carriageway at this stage, with a nice bikepath running alongside away from the traffic. You can see the road in the background:



The bikepath was quite overhung by trees in places, and bore very little sign of regular use. After a few kms the path ended and it was back to the hard shoulder:

Above picture shows cycle path signs well in evidence - in readiness for when the Pacific Highway becomes regularly used by cyclists. That day may still be a while away!

Above - the old general store at Billinudgel, just off the highway - where I took a brief stop for a sandwich that was anything but "gourmet". Note the old style petrol pump at the front.

I made good rapid progress along the flat, well-surfaced highway and was in Tweed Heads, at the border with Queensland, shortly after 10am, after travelling about 70kms.

Above - border marker between NSW and Queensland.

Australian Walk of Fame, Coolangatta

Tweed Heads segues into Coolangatta, the first town in Queensland; the only way you can tell you've gone from one to the other is that the clocks in Queensland are 1 hour behind those in NSW. These twin towns mark the start of the development known as the Gold Coast, which stretches for about 30kms north.

Looking north from Burleigh Heads, shortly after Coolangatta - the skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise are visible from a long way away (above)

Shortly after 2pm I reached Surfers Paradise. I'd been there before and knew what to expect. Yes it's rather tacky, a sort of cross between Las Vegas and Blackpool - but nevertheless great fun, with all the entertainment, bars, restaurants and tourist attractions that anyone could want. And the sun always shines there. Well it wasn't actually shining today - but it was certainly warm enough - and dry!

Above - entrance to Cavill Mall, the centre of Surfers.

I'm definitely going to stay here for a few days. Brisbane is only about 80kms from here so an easy 1 day's journey - and I'm not planning to return to Sydney until Saturday 21st. So I've plenty of time to spare. If I'd known the weather was going to remain dry all this time I could probably have spent a bit longer in some of the places on the way here but since I didn't, I've tried to cover as much distance as possible every day, to leave time to spare in case rain delayed progress further on in the trip.

I checked into the Portobello apartment building in Broadbeach, 2kms south of Surfers but very handy for the casino:

Below is a view from the beach outside the apartment:

Then I put the bike away for a while and went off for a walk around. From the casino there's a monorail link across to the huge Oasis complex, one of many big malls in the Gold Coast area. The following pictures were taken from the monorail and give some idea of the scale of the development here:

And here's one taken from underneath the monorail, showing the casino in the background:

Now to start checking out the bars here - this will take me some time! To start with, here is the "Moo Moo Bar" - I loved the cowhide seats, and the wine list was pretty impressive too!

Total distance covered today (including exploring around Surfers) - 116.9kms. Trip total - 1087kms.

Update 2245hrs - came back to apartment to post blog, was just about to set out again - but it's now raining hard! Can't go out now, I haven't an umbrella! Oh well - I guess it couldn't stay dry for ever, my luck had to run out eventually! Let's see what's on the TV.....