Where We Ate: The Gold Coast Edition

I think we can all agree that a holiday is not complete without delicious food. On our recent trip to the Gold Coast, Matt indulged my foodie tendencies and let me organise our non-theme park days around all of the cafes and restaurants I’d heard about from friends or seen on my insta feed.

Here are a few that are worthy of mention.

Grocer & Grind (Shop 1/1 Sunshine Boulevard, Gold Coast)

Grocer & Grind is a delicious little cafe-come-wholefoods-grocer tucked away behind Broadbeach. Their menu is all healthy, all quality, all fresh and all local. Serving high quality coffee, breakfast all day and a range of delicious smoothies, this is a cafe that delivers on all fronts. We sat next to the big open windows and enjoyed a feast of breakfast foods for lunch. It was flippin’ fantastic.

Elk Espresso (16 Chelsea Avenue, Broadbeach)

Elk Espresso is a gorgeous little cafe not far from the beachfront in Broadbeach. I’d discovered this little gem a few weeks earlier when I was at the Gold Coast for work and I was pretty keen to get back. Their menu is deliciously quirky, the produce is fresh, the dishes are pretty and the coffee is on point. The laid-back vibes make it the perfect spot for a sleepy holiday breakfast or an afternoon coffee break. They also do dinner on Friday nights, which, from the looks of their instagram account (@elksespresso), looks pretty flippin’ delicious too.

The Cardamom Pod (Shop 11/110 Surf Parade, Broadbeach)

The Cardamom Pod is an all-vegetarian all-delicious restaurant nestled in a corner among all of the other restaurants in Broadbeach. We made it there for dinner one night and for only $30 scored their share platter of 4 dishes plus rice. They are also open for breakfast on the weekends, which I have heard is amazing, and their smoothie menu alone is worth the visit.

ESPL (4 The Esplanade, Surfers Paradise)

From the moment I laid eyes on their sugar-coated, caramel syringe-stabbed doughnuts on their instagram feed (@blackboardcoffee), I was on a mission to find one of Blackboard Coffee’s many locations along the Gold Coast. It didn’t take long to find ESPL. A tiny little cafe opposite the beach at Surfers Paradise, ESPL arguably serves up the best soy cap in all of Surfers and, more importantly, stocks those little pockets of decadence I’d been eyeing off on instagram for a few weeks. We didn’t get the chance to seek out their other locations, but their larger cafe at Varsity Lakes looks like the perfect spot for a long and lazy brunch.

– Bec x

Our Guide to Theme Park Happiness

There is one reason, and one reason alone, that Matt and I decided to holiday at the Gold Coast – the search for theme park happiness. It’s that feeling of elation experienced as the combined result of fear, excitement, adrenalin and fairy floss-induced sugar comas commonly occurring in theme parks across the world.

The Gold Coast has well and truly established itself as Australia’s capital of theme park happiness. It was on our first day that Matt and I discovered this special kind of happy during a visit to this little out-of-the-way place called Dreamworld.* We subsequently found it again the next day at Movie World and the day after that at Wet ‘n’ Wild.

Matt and I absolutely love theme parks – we both love roller coasters and I have a particular fondness for dorky tourist photos, eating fairy floss and wearing souvenir Bugs Bunny ears on the bus all the way back to our apartment.

If you too are going to the Gold Coast in search of theme park happiness, we have three quick tips on how to find it faster.

1. Do some research and buy tickets before you go.

There are always deals on offer somewhere on the internet. For instance, Australian health and car insurance companies often have cheap tickets available for members. If you do a bit of research and buy early, you should be able to get tickets on the cheap with some money left over for gorging on over-priced ice cream and fairy floss during your visit.

2. Avoid school holidays if you can.

Matt’s uni holidays just happened to fall on the week the NSW and Queensland school holidays overlapped, so we had little choice but to brave the swarming crowds of pre-teens dragging their parents from ride to ride. It wasn’t quite as bad as I may have just made it sound, but that’s a blogger’s prerogative. In reality, there were only a few times when the lines were longer than we thought reasonable. But however painless our experience was, if you do have the choice, going on a weekday outside of school holidays would guarantee you some serious theme park happy.

3. Pack your lunch

This was Matt’s idea. To be honest, the thought of getting organised enough to have a packed lunch at a theme park had never even crossed my mind. That little extra effort beforehand though was really worthwhile – we had a far superior lunch to any that could be purchased at a theme park and we had more money to spend on fairy floss and ice cream. Just ensure you don’t take notice of the rule stating you can’t take your own lunch. We were blissfully unaware this rule existed and it never mattered. Just don’t take in anything glass, they will take glass off you.

– Bec x

*Dreamworld is actually quite large.

Facing 2014 As A Newly-Inducted Adult

It is only now, in the few quiet moments at the beginning of January, when the craze of the holiday season has died away and the new year hangover has faded, that I realise 2014 is actually here and I can take some time to reflect on the year that was.

2013. A year when adulthood stared me in the face and the word responsibility took on a whole new meaning.

A year that saw my uni days come to an end, a four month stint in the tropical paradise of what was once known as the Cannibal Islands and the start of my dream job.

A year when my next most significant purchase was going to be a new car, but I decided to take it one step further and buy an apartment instead. A purchase that started out as a passing comment in a cafe one Friday morning and, less than 72 hours later, had resulted in a deposit being paid and a whole lot of financial commitment landing in my otherwise commitment-less lap.

So, as I sit and reflect on the year that has been and gone as quickly as Miley Cyrus’ reputation, I realise that I now face 2014 as a newly-inducted adult with a responsibility to save, not for my next overseas adventure, but instead for an impending mortgage. I have a responsibility to a new job in which I don’t have the freedom of long drawn out uni holidays, but instead must work my travel around the full time reality of four weeks holiday a year.

As the new year begins, I find myself in a position that I never have before, an exciting position where most of my thoughts are taken up with ideas for home decorating and my potential succulent collection. But also, a position where I find myself asking, what do my new found responsibilities really mean for me in 2014? And perhaps more importantly for anyone who happens to chance upon this blog, what does this mean for inexplicable wanderlust – a blog that inherently relies upon my ability (in terms of time, finances and otherwise) to travel?

Well, what you can expect from inexplicable wanderlust in 2014 is just that, the same as always – inexplicable wanderlust, a difficult to explain impulse to wander and travel.

But this year I might just have to do things a little differently. Unlike my uni days when I spent every evening, weekend and public holiday behind a coffee machine keeping the locals appropriately fed, watered and caffeinated. It is now my turn to wake up late on a Saturday and spend the weekend eating and drinking my way through the local establishments.

That is what 2014 holds for inexplicable wanderlust. With the South Coast and Snowy Mountains on Canberra’s proverbial doorstep, a budding arts and culture scene that grows by the minute and some of the best food and coffee in all the land, it will be me spending my weekends relishing all that my hometown has to offer.

And of course there are other, somewhat larger, travel plans in the pipeline, but for now I have some holiday snaps to share. Since Christmas I’ve been back and forth between Canberra and the South Coast, taking every opportunity I can to get to the beach, to swim in the ocean and bask in the glorious summer sun – a trend that I hope continues for the rest of the year.

So, while I might be facing 2014 with a mortgage and still no car, this adult thing looks like it still might turn out alright.

Sunshine, Sand and Smiles

I have a beautiful collection of photos from my time spent on the Coral Coast with my family in July.

Eight nights in a tropical paradise. Surrounded by my favourite humans. Sunshine, sand and smiles. All day. Every day. It was pure bliss.

Note: Most photos taken by the beautiful Harriet. Other photos taken by myself and my gorgeous boyfriend Matt.

My New Favourite Holiday

Of all the times to be stranded in Toronto, I was pretty lucky. It was the week of Halloween. And I was making the most of my very first experience of this North American tradition.

The festivities began on the weekend and continued all week long.

Early in the week, Lauren and I carved our very first jack-o-lanterns.

On the day of Halloween we were invited to have a few drinks with Anne-Sophie and her parents, who were visiting from France. They were staying out in the suburbs. So we made the trip out and lapped up the opportunity to see the elaborately decorated houses and hand out candy to all the little trick-or-treaters. It was so incredibly cute!

We then took Halloween to the subway and back to the apartment to celebrate Fanny’s birthday (another French exchange student) in true Halloween style.

Halloween is definitely my new favourite holiday.

Note: Photos by the wonderful and talented Lauren Waldhuter.