Touch Down@Gold Coast, Queensland.

It has been 2 days since I came home from GC and alhamdulillah everything went well except for the moody weather on a couple of days. Well, that's normal and it's out of our jurisdiction, anyway. Since we are always late for our flight, so this time around, dengan semangat baru.. we were already at the airport by 7.30pm which was exactly 2 hours be4 the flight. However, dah kalau memang keluarga kartun tu tetap kartun, we were still the 2nd last group to board that night. The last group was a group of Australian. It happened like this.. Sampai2, we checked our departure's detail at the screen..Then, lepak2 kat body shop, bought maxis prepaid for my son, hubby tukar duit lagik..he..he..lastly, we went to Marrybrown for dinner.. Suddnly, tngh tangkap gmbar bubur, I saw the boarding time on the tix that the gate will be opened at 8.45..masa tengok tu dah pukul 9 lebih sikit... apa lagik.. makan x habis, packed semua..lari ke gate mcm ribut... tp kejadian lari2 ni memang dah biasa sangat dah dngn kami..so, x da lah cemas sngt cuma bila baca kat monitor, gate already closed, baru cuak sket.... sampai2 kat pintu, 2nd last...selamat kami!

Waktu snap bubur ni lah perasan yg kita dah lewat... To my surprised,
bubur ni dpt lepas naik atas flight... Ni x kira liquid ke..?Even the customs who were checking
 our stuff didn't really check on us as we were already late...

This is what they always do during flights. PSP, phone, laptop, etc. But
only for an hour or two for Farah...Lepas tu, melasak!

The flight was 95% full and the journey was smooth sailing and we arrived on time. The duration from KL to GC is about 7 1/2 hours. Queensland time is 2 hours ahead of Malaysia. So, we landed at about 7.35am which was about 5.35am Malaysian time. Masih subuh kat Msia. I couldn't sleep at all during the flight, tried to but couldn't. Farah was not helping either. At that time, I felt like not taking her on any long haul flights anymore. Serik betol dngn si kecik tu. She didn't sit still even for a second until she fell asleep at 1am [sigh].

Nak landing dah...

Gold Coast from our plane.

Sampai2 aja Coolangata Airport, I was so afraid of the food that we brought. As we know, Aautralia practises very strict rules on food brought into the country. If I'm not mistaken, there were 4 different officers asking me about the food that we brought. I just told them briefly and they seemed to be OK with it. Lane 2 has a dog sniffing all the bags but luckilly we were told to go to lane 6. A guy checked our food bag and asked me what's inside the packet and I told him it was a paste. Alhamdulillah, all my food went through... I met a family at Paradise Country Farm and the makcik told me that her mayonnaise was confiscated during the checking.  We landed at 7.35am and we were out of the terminal at about 8.30 am, nearly an hour. The airport was basically not very big, ala2 sebesar airport kat Kuala Terengganu. The current temperature at that time was 14 degree Celsius and the weather seemed cloudy but alhamdulillah not raining the whole day.

Once out, I searched for Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle counter to buy the Gocard for our entire trip in Gold Coast. U won't miss the counter, kaler oren.. There are 2 counters actually, one at the international arrival and the other one at the domestic arrival. It's very easy and convenient to use the GoCard. u'll get about 20% off the paper tickets. Basically, the system is like our touch n go card or Oyster card in London where u need to top up the card with money as little as AUD5. U can top up at any 7/11s or from the bus drivers. We topped up our credit with the bus driver. It's fast and easy! HOWEVER, do not forget to tap your card both on the way in and out of the bus or u'll be charged the maximum journey fee, the next time u tap your card.

This is an adult Gocard. Child one is orange in color.
Photo courtesy of Surfside website. 

Farah waiting for me to buy the Gocard

We waited for bus 702 to Surfers Paradise. Since it was a Saturday,
so we got an off peak price for the whole day in addition to the 20% off
for Gocard holder. So, we paid AUD4.35 for adults and AUD2.18 for kids.
Normal single paper ticket is AUD7.90 for adults and AUD4 for kids.

Farah in bus 702. Dora pon  ikot ke GC tau. The airport bus has extra
luggage compartments for the bags. 

From Coolangata Airport to Surfers Paradise took us about 45 minutes. That's the normal journey time. When I was in GC, never encountered traffic jams whatsoever... Even though there were road works here and there, but the traffics were smooth flowing. Bus system in Gold Coast is very efficient and tip top. They are very punctual and customer friendly too.

We stayed at a one bedroom apartment at  Tiki Village International at Surfers Paradise. Very central to everything and cheap too. I got the apartment from my time share deal. I will blog about the apartment in a separate post.