29 Aug 2011 - Day 1: Touch down at Brisbane, drive down to Gold Coast

We touched down at Brisbane International Airport at about 9:30am (Aus time). The custom check was pretty thorough. Once out of the arrival hall, I immediately made a call to the car rental company for a pickup to their office. The moment we stepped out of the airport building, we were surprised that the weather was pretty hot. The car rental staff told us that the temperature then was about 25 degrees.

We reached the car rental office in about 5 mins. We thought everything went through smoothly until the staff said:"Sir, you have rented a 5 seater car, but now you have 6 people, that will not do". They said the local traffic regulation is very strict and they do not want to risk losing their license to operate the business. Btw, they are only 5 weeks old in Australia (though the company already has 14 years of operation in New Zealand). After some consideration, it seemed like I have no choice but to upgrade to a 8 seater van. Initially, they said they do not have one that can last my entire trip. However, they said what they can do is to get us one now and 6 days later, return the van at 8am and pick up another van at 1pm. Fortunately, we'll be back at Brisbane 6 days later so guessed we can only go with that arrangement. After completing the paperwork and payment, we went to the garage and saw a whole range of Hyundai cars. And they are all very NEW (2011 model)! I was shocked when I saw the van that I've rented. It's HUGE! I've never driven such a huge car and think I will need quite a while to get used to it.

After setting up the GPS, toll tag and loaded all our baggage, we were good to go to our first destination, Gold Coast. Before that, we went to a nearby mall to have our lunch as the drive will take about an hour. We arrived at our apartment at about 2:30pm. Due to the height of my rented van, I cannot park it at the basement carpark. Fortunately, there is a garbage area that belongs to the apartment where I can park my van. Hehe......the garbage area was not what you think.....it's clean...... The apartment is right next to the beach. The first thing that caught our attention when we entered the apartment was the view from our balcony. Superb view of the beach and the sea.

It's a two bedroom apartment with a nice living room and kitchen. Only problem is that there is only one common toilet.


We had a short rest at the apartment before going to the nearby Pacific Mall to do some shopping at Coles supermarket. We bought quite a bit of food such as instant noodles, bread, fruits and drinks in preparation for the coming days.

We took some photos around the mall and very soon, the sky started to turn dark.

I had a sunset shot from the mall's carpark and by about 6pm, the whole place was in darkness.

We cooked our dinner in the apartment and had an early rest. Our actual program starts from tomorrow........ :-)