All class on the Gold Coast

Throwing all cynicism and class to the wind, we braced ourselves for 3 days of theme-park madness. After a year of rustic living, open spaces, peace and serenity, we were ready to go bananas! So we packed a bag of healthy snacks (ok not toooo bananas...) and headed for our first day at Movieworld (Hollywood on the Gold Coast!!). And we had the best day ever. Bill again displayed his incredible lack of fear by going on almost every single super scary ride there. Zara showed that she is truly her father's daughter by going on every scary ride she was allowed on. And Sash reminded us that he is still only 4 and finds the snail-paced merry-go-round quite thrilling indeed. Me, well I loved the Spooky-coaster with Zara, the stunt cars with the kids, the roller-coaster with everyone, the 4D movie experience, and the gluttonous bottomless buffet lunch... But most of all I loved how excited Sash was by the people dressed up as movie characters and how he lined up so many times to meet them that they all knew him by the end of the day. He wasn't interested in having his photo taken with them - he just wanted to hug and kiss them with pure adoration all over his beautiful face. He even kissed Tweety-Bird's feet...

We had planned to hit the water-slides at Wet N Wild the next day but the light rain was a bit off-putting (standing in endless queues in wet bathers), so we headed to Sea World instead. Again, a great day. We ooohed and ahhhhhed along with the crowd at the performing dolphins and seals - but felt slightly uncomfortable with the whole concept at the same time. Education verses exploitation and all that... Giant moving dinosaurs were cool though. And the Dora show. And Sash got to meet Spongebob and Squarepants and a whole heap of other characters who he did not recognise but loved all the same...

And yes, the next day we actually returned to where our hearts were - Movieland! You see, Bill had run out of time and had missed out on one of the scary rides. And the rest of us didn't need much encouragement to go back...

Gotta love the Gold Coast!