My son George is just about to turn 12, so the night wasn’t that wild. But since he saw and did things he never had before, it was pretty wild to him. G and I have spent the past two weekends in Queensland, going back to Canberra during the week for work and school.

The first weekend was for my brother-in-law’s wedding in Brisbane (more on that in a later post). I’ll start from the most recent visit which was a trip to the Gold Coast to take G to see Queen (+ Adam Lambert). I’d booked the Queen tickets last April as a surprise for his 12th birthday.

He actually knew about the Queen bit but he didn’t know it was on the Gold Coast (because by the time I’d booked I could not get two seats together at the Sydney shows. I though a surprise trip to the Goldie would be fun! Little did I know that Uncle Leo would propose to the Divine Miss A and that their wedding would be in Brisbane the week before our Gold Coast trip! But not one to complain, I sucked up two weekends in a row in the not-too shabby South East Queensland.

We arrived at our Surfer’s Paradise hotel on the train from Brisbane at 7pm (also partly via a chauffer-driven Mercedes – that was not an Uber -which I accidentally booked, but that’s another blog post), then got ready to go out to dinner at a burger joint called Milky Lane. We walked down the Esplanade to Cavill Ave, a hive of lights, fast-food joints of every kind, souvenir shops, and all kinds of people. We even saw four bicycle-riding men dressed as super-heros. George looked around in awe.

We finally made it to Milky Lane just before 8pm, and I momentarily worried about the loud music – how would my middle-aged ears and his pre-teen ears cope with this music that was too loud for us to talk – oh well perhaps we’d just get used to it – the 20-somethings in booths didn’t seem to mind. But thankfully we were led to a slightly quieter dining area down the back.

After some time studying the menu, I let George order the “Kevin Bacon” despite my better judgement. I felt he really should’ve gone for the kids burger, at half the size and half the price. The Kevin Bacon in all it’s greasy and meat/cheese laden glory arrived and two bites later he’d finished with it.

I ordered the Chic-Kanye. This was a spicy chicken burger that was almost too hot to handle. I now realise we should’ve ordered one burger between us. In fact, the fries and vanilla milkshake (and wine for me) probably would’ve been enough. But still, all the important food groups were represented – there was a Cos lettuce leaf on one of the meat patties, right there next to the melted cheese.

Despite the huge dinner, there was room for an ice-cream from Baskin Robins (separate stomach for dessert) “I never do this!” I said to an older woman who was looking at my honeycomb icrecream with whipped cream on top as we left the shop. “No, of course not, that’s what holidays are for! Start again on Monday” she said comfortingly. How did she know that’s exactly how I roll (not literally).

After picking up a pair of thongs in a souvenir shop (I’d forgotten to pack/remind George to pack his thongs) we checked out the beachfront night markets, stalls of tasty treats and gifts.

As the beach is quite narrow, so close to the Esplanade, and well lit from the street lights, we ventured on to the sand and tested the water. It was the perfect temperature. George discovered what he was sure was a box jellyfish on the sand, but after googling it later back in the hotel room, I was pretty sure it was a normal jellyfish (boxes aren’t usually found south of Gladstone).

Then it was time to head back to our hotel. As we were waiting to cross the Esplanade, a car with four youths (hoodlums, my mum would say) drove past with the windows down and one of them suddenly squawked something unintelligible. It made George jump.

“Well, this has been the wildest night I’ve ever had!” he said. And I reckon he’s right. So far. I pushed thoughts of a future Schoolies week out of my head.

Next time: Part 2 “Saturday Night”

Have you ever had a wild night in Surfer’s Paradise? I did in 1995, looooong after I’d finished high school. I don’t think it was really that wild though. And I never went to Schoolies.