The Gold Coast, or the 'Goldy' as it's known to a nation of abbreviators, is the Costa Del Sol of Australia. A place where every bus stop has a kid with a bodyboard wedged under an arm, every beach has a shower, a BBQ pit and a surf lifesavers club. Every other male under 25 wears a Bintang vest and drives a Ute.* Everyone wears sunglasses - over the eyes by day, over the head by night. Everyone on the beach has a tan, and, thanks to the relentless scary pseudo-scientific campaigning of the cancer council, everyone is obsessed with skin cancer. But, for every bronzed lifesaver running and swimming on the beach, there is a pale fatty chowing down in Macca's**. There are two categories of people here - the freakishly fit and the freakishly fat: as well as the most sport-obsessed, Australia is now the worlds most obese nation. Surfing is the true national sport. 11% of the population surfs, and at least 10% of the vehicles here have a surfboard on the roof. Gambling is the other. While blonde haired teens in teeny bikinis steal waves from under your nose, dishing out sexual and surfual frustration in equal measure, in the surf clubs and RSL's old folk fritter away their pensions away on the Pokies**.
It's all so sun-bleached, loud and trashy, and I love it.
* Abbreviation of 'Utility vehicle', although
with their lowered suspension, chrome rims and custom paint job, many
Utes are far from utilitarian.
** Abbreviation of Poker machines.
