Gold Coast slave bus bound for sandy gold fields
Comin’ from a market known as God’s waiting room
Scarred old pensioner knows he’s doing alright

He’ll get to Surfers just around midnight

Dadadada …tanned sugar daddy… how come you dance so good?

Dadadada…tanned sugar daddy …just like an old man should!

Once upon a time… when casinos and poker machines did not exist in Queensland…regular tsunamis of Banana Benders flooded the clubs and pubs of Tweed Heads… in hope that the one armed bandits (poker machines) delivered that pot of gold.

Tsunami’s of course, like the tide, eventually turn.

Nowadays, cashed up old folk from the New South Wales (NSW) town of Tweed Heads, (affectionately known as God’s waiting room for strolling bones), are more inclined to head for the Queensland (QLD) Gold Coast, where pubs, clubs, casinos and shopping centres abound – and gold lingers somewhere – waiting to be found.

Our journey begins at Rainbow Bay, where the sign lurking under a long green strip of Norfolk Island pines welcomes those heading for NSW’s northern most beach.

Interestingly, below the Rainbow Bay sign, another sign reads: Point Danger.  Point Danger – an eerie place name indeed! I wonder?

 

A dangerous point inhabited by cutlass wielding pirates, Paul Hogan’s last stand against the tax department, or where sharks of the white pointer variety wait to trip you up as you take that Pacific Ocean dip? We drive to the top of the hill to check things out. No such danger to be seen as I gaze down at the deep blue sea gently lapping the golden sands at the mouth of the Tweed River. In fact the beach is quiet, apart from a suntanned old man throwing a pink frisbee to his big red dog.

I sit quietly on a park bench entertained by big red and his best man friend. Big red misses the frisbee, it sails high, high above my head, caught in a crisp, cool, breeze of southern Antarctic origins. I turn to follow the frisbee’s trajectory, the dog barks “woof”, as the tanned old man curses big red for missing the plastic cylindrical Martian bone.

From this high vantage point, I could now see the Gold Coast in the distance, an elongated string of seaside concrete lego land, 25 kilometres to the north, and about the same amount of minutes by car.

It was time to head for those sandy gold fields, and join the surfer folk among waves that may eventually devour the globally warmed towering bits of concrete. We left the tanned old man and his big red dog on the beach, staring at the pink frisbee, drifting too close to point danger for rescue.

Seconds later, and crossing the state border, we join a long trail of NSW asylum seekers heading for Surfers Paradise (Surfers) and the gold therein. Before long we were driving among cloud catcher buildings, like monsters from outer space, towering above – with Surfers just around the bend.

Surfboard monuments to a liquid religion line the entrance to Cavill Mall – the paradise shop till you drop tourist centre – a place for surfers who need a feed before they return to the brine. The car is parked and the search for gold begins. We search everywhere: the beach, the alley ways – every conceivable hideaway. Nothing – not a glitter here nor there.

Where oh where could the gold be?

A seagull dines on golden French fries left behind by obese humans. I ask the seagull: where can we find this Gold Coast gold?

 

 

 

 He replies:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo!

Golden french fries…how come you taste so good?

Yum, yum, yum, woo!

Just like a…seagull should!

 

I decide that the seagull is mad – and perhaps I’m mad too for thinking a seagull would really tell me where the gold is. But then…I had already found that gold… in an earlier blog… somewhere at the end of a rainbow.

  

Words & Pictures

Dennis Guild – Lecturer

James Cook University Brisbane