Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise

One hour’s drive south of Brisbane is Surfers Paradise. A very touristic place with enormous buildings (70 storey +). One thing missing though are the Surfers! The crystal blue waves are beautiful and waiting to be ridden by surfers, but none to be seen. Very weird. Surfers Paradise and no Surfers, what’s going on here?
We didn’t like Surfers Paradise very much and chose to go a little more south. We did well! We arrived at almost desolate golden beaches with perfect blue water. After a long swim and severe sunburn we went for a delicious barbeque with a view. Walking back to the car we got stopped by a clan of people barbequing. They offered us beer, asked if we knew the Australian Anthem and sang it to us. Kind of weird having 20 people sing out loud to us. Luckily they had beer as we soon felt more at ease :o). Of course, they played cricket and demanded I bat a couple of balls. I have got to learn this game. And Yeah I hit the ball! It went flying into the dunes.
On the drive back we saw more beautiful beaches, nice forests, colorful birds, (not only talking about the animals mate).