Day 16 - The Golden Hours
Only last night, I got cold feet about driving and also didn't want to deal with the hassle of what was an unclear rental pickup sitaution in Brisbane. So I scratched that, got an uber at 9am down to Gold Coast to what was in theory my main point of tourism, the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Couple this with Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and my plans to see the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, and I'm dedicating a lot of time to seeing Aussie creatures - which in my view makes perfect sense given how notable these particular creatures are, how singular they are to this continent.
Currumbin is a lot like Lone Pine, except instead of featuring koalas, they feature kangaroos. Not to say they don't have koalas, but they are far less plentiful. They did have a large expansive area towards the end where kangaroos roam free - maybe in not as high a number as they did in the Phillip Island Kangaroo park we went to in 2013, but it was similar in intent. We even found one kangaroo that had a joey in its pouch that poked its ear, hand, legs out. A group of five of us waited probably ten minutes to see if it would come out fully but never did. Still, it was a pleasure to spend time in such close proximity to these marvelous hoppers.
Currumbin is more than just kangaroos though. First of all, it is surprisingly large given it sits inside a town in the Gold Coast. Like there are just normal houses across the street and it seems like it would be small but is quite sprawling. They also had a really nice nocturnal animals set-up where they actually take you inside a small building that is blacked out where you can actually get a peek at some of these. Granted, I'm sure some environmentalists would say it is cruel to make these animals think it is perpetually night time or whatever, but it beats Lone Pine having them in open air areas where unsurprisngly 95% of them were sleeping.
From Currumbin, I went a bit further upwards about halfway between Currumbin and the main Gold Coast city, to the town of Burleigh, whose beach is the southern end of a series of beaches leading up to the main city. From teh beach here you get a nice view of Gold Coast's surprisingly nice skyline, and of course the just glistening beach. Before I went to the beach though, took a quick stop in one of Burleigh's many restaurant filled alleys to stop for a conveyor sushi lunch - not the best, not the worst, but efficient and having maybe the coldest coke zero can ever.
The whole town of Burleigh reminded me so much of San Diego. The whole set-up down, in a way. San Diego also has the small downtown with nice skyline, but if anything is more notable for endless picturesque beach towns bordering it - ones like here with Burleigh. The weather was also San Diego like, a perfect 73 degrees (again in their late Winter), to which an uber driver told me in Summer it will generally cap out aroudn 85. Perfect - the town added to that with the pristine beach (cold, cold water though) and beautiful people strolling around in beach clothes in the middle of the day on a Thursday.
I enjoyed my little respite in the Gold Coast, and if anything added it to my mental trip for a potential third trip to Australia, a list including it and Perth for the time being (when this will happen? who knows, but I doubt it will be another twelve years). I got to the airport way too early given how quick the check in and security was, which was annoying but gave me time to watch the latest episode of Alien: Earth (very good!). The flight to Sydney was fine, though we were held circling for about twenty minutes. The scheduled landing was 6pm, to which we landed at 6:20pm, with a dinner booking at 7:45pm - not to worry though as by the time I got to the conveyor, the bags were coming out, and Sydney is notable for having its airport be quite close to city center, and by 7pm I was checking into my AirBNB in Darlinghurst.
My meal was at Kiln, a fusion/australian eatery, in the Essa mold, which of course had a banquet menu, to which of course I chose to partake in. Out of the three, ti probably had the best snacks - they had a kangaroo tartater nori which was amazing, as was a yellowtail preparation. However, their main beef dish was probably the weakest main I've had at these banquet spots. As with all of them I didn't finish every course, but that isn't really the idea. It's basically getting a chance to taste a panoply of their dishes (generally they are all on the a-la-carte menu also) for like 1.5x the price of ordering an app, main and dessert.
From Kiln, I wanted to check out a few cocktail spots - the first being a speakeasy named The Barbershop. Why? Well, because the door is hidden in the back wall of a barbershop (which I would learn as I write this part of it the following day, is a real active barbershop). The place is large, they serve primarily gin and gin-based drinks, from martinis to Gintonica's (the Brazilian inspired types), to various gin cocktails both their own and old classics. It was a really effective spot and a great way to start the night.
From there I went around the block to PS40, a more notable cocktail spot that when I arrived was fairly empty - the bartender telling me that i was lucky I came then, as about 20 minutes earlier it was packed. I would question this but Google's live business meter said the same. The cocktails here are more varied, inventive (one involved a sous vide) and vibrant - very much my type of place.
Thursday Night isn;'t a notable club/EDM one in Sydney - granted, that's the case everywhere, but very much so here. But there was one place that was on my lsit for drinks / casual enjoyment that also had a live DJ on Thursday Nights and clsoed at 3am (I left at 2am, but the two prior cocktail spots both closed at 1am) and that was The Soda Factory. Honestly, it was fantastic, but not sure if that's because it was perfectly suited for me on this particular day - the DJ playing all 00's and '10's hip hop and house, a crowd of about 30-50 all in the say 25-36 age range. Drinks weren't expensive. The Soda Factory hit all the marks, even if I won';t be back - I have my sights set on bigger things for my last two days in Australia.
