TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / MAY 2017 89
After too long an absence from
this corner of Australia, I find
myself driving along the edge of
Broadwater, a dreamy blue estuary
ringed by little beaches on the Gold
Coast’s northern tip. Ahead of me
are the glistening glass towers of
Surfers Paradise, rising from the
shoreline like modern phoenixes.
The tallest is Q1, a 322-meter-
high monolith modeled on the
Sydney 2000 Olympics torch. It was
the world’s tallest residential tower
when it opened in 2005 and is still
the southern hemisphere’s tallest
building. It’s also home to the Q1
Resort and Spa, where I’ve booked
a 46th-floor spa apartment. The
views are impressive but nothing
compared to the 360-degree visual
feast at the Sky Point Observation
Deck on the 77th floor. From here,
the Gold Coast skyline—edged
by sand and sea, underscored
by canals, with a backdrop of
forested mountains—appears like
a rendering from a science-fiction
film about a futurist utopia where
an advanced civilization exists in
perfect harmony with nature.Back on ground level, the vistas are less salubrious.
Surfers Paradise has grown in size but not changed in
character one iota from my last visit nearly three decades
ago when, as teens, a friend and I would sneak away from
our parents in Brisbane to what was Australia’s capital of
sun, surf and sex. Today, I pass young mothers with full-
body tattoos pushing prams, obese teenagers slurping
sodas and tourists with apparent selfie-compulsion-
disorders. I see a man in a Victorian evening gown
sitting on a bench, too many fake boobs and an endless
number of ice cream shops. The Hard Rock Café now
occupies the spot where Brisbane hotelier Jim Cavill
opened Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1925 in a town that was
called Elston but renamed during the Great Depression
in a bid to attract tourists. I dare say it worked.
At the beachside promenade, I see two long-legged
women in high heels and gold bikinis posing for photos
with tourists: Gold Coast Meter Maids. Introduced in
1965 by local shopkeepers weary of losing business when
parking meters were introduced to the strip, meter
maids became emblems of the freedom, promise, allure
and raunchiness of the Gold Coast—a marketing tour
de force that drew tourists by busloads. “I get e-mails
from people all over the world saying my grandfather
and father got photos with the meter maids, and now I’m
coming over and I want to get a photo too,” says Roberta
Ann Aitchison, a retired maid from the 1980s who now
owns the Gold Coast Meter Maid trademark.
The meter maids of today spend less time putting
coins in parking meters and more time selling
memorabilia, and they’re no longer local surfer girls but
tourists from Brazil. “I like it here because it looks like
Rio, the lifestyle is the same but it’s a lot safer than Rio,”
says meter maid Sue. Adds her co-maid Michelle: “I like
the weather. It’s always summer. We love the beach.”
And what a beach it is: an uninterrupted golden arc
that stretches all the way south to the horizon. I leave
my shirt and shoes under a lifeguard tower and run into
the sea, where foamy white waves and crystal blue water
make everything new again.
It seems crazy to say it now, but I never even set foot
in the ocean during my many visits here as a teenager,
instead spending the nights on strobe-lit dance floors
and the days sleeping off inevitable hangovers. Today,
you couldn’t pay me to enter the Goldie’s tacky clubs, but
all this heavenly clean water and sand, all of it free.
Later in the day, I follow the short but spectacular
coastal drive from Surfers to The Spit. A large palm-
lined sand bar separating Broadwater and the Pacific
Ocean, The Spit is home to Palazzo Versace hotel, the
Gold Coast’s answer to Versailles; the Aussie Sea World;
and a large marina lined with restaurants, bars and
watersports operators like Gold Coast Jet Ski Safari.
The owner, Adrian Bond, a former construction
worker from Melbourne, who, like everyone else, movedTOP LEFT: COURTESY OF GOLD COAST TOURISM