Tugun with Ros & Pete

We all landed in Tugun last Sunday afternoon - Ros by way of a flight from Geelong, Pete by way of a 4 hour car trip from Sandy Beach (where he's been house sitting for a mate for the past week) and we arrived by car, having driven up the M1 from Coogee early that morning. 

We've all found our way to unit 13 at Pacific Surf in Tugun for a 6 night stay - so many thanks to David and Ro for introducing us to this great place on the occasion of their wedding last February.

We arrived to a glorious sunny afternoon, and a very happy reunion, by Tugun beach.........

We knew we might be in for a stormy week ahead so it felt extra good to get down on that beach as the sun was going down - while there were no rain squalls on the horizon (well not yet anyway).

It's rained most days since Sunday - but Tuesday dawned with a wide expanse of blue sky and a spectacular sun rise through the clouds.

We walked in the sunshine all the way to Kirra Beach (3.9klms along the coastal path) that morning, eventually finding our way to our fave coffee joint (Coastal Living) along the esplanade.

Yesterday Rob and I caught the train up to Brisbane. We'd booked tickets to an afternoon show at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at beautiful Southbank. The train service from Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast in to South Brisbane Station is easy, efficient and cheap (only 50c a ride). There was a disruption to yesterday's service because of track work but back up systems were in place and we found the service was excellent and completely stress free.

Southbank looked as spic and span and gloriously sub-tropical as ever ..........

We found an old favourite Middle Eastern restaurant at the eastern end of the foodie area - Baba Ganouj - so we were able to enjoy a fabulous lunch before the show.

But we were here to see the man himself - Sting - performing in "The Last Ship" - a musical (more like a dramatised story with songs) he wrote as a tribute to the grim ship building town he grew up in in NE England (Wallsend, near Newcastle on Tyne).

Rob took this while I was attempting my selfie with Sting (how embarrassing).

The beautiful Glasshouse Theatre at QPAC looked stunning this afternoon - a worthy venue for this wonderful show which we found stirring, heartfelt and packing quite a punch. Sting played a leading role and was in fine voice along with the rest of the cast. 

We caught the train back to the Gold Coast again afterwards, arriving back around 6.30pm after a completely wonderful day. We're so glad we were able to do it!!

We woke to another rainy morning again here today, so we decided to drive the short distance to Burleigh Beach for lunch and a change of scenery. We took these photos while we had about 15 minutes of sunshine at Burleigh.

We'd had lunch at Red Hot Cod at Burleigh on a previous visit. We found it again today - and enjoyed similar Bali inspired seafood dishes but the casual venue has much expanded spaces and a brand new recent fit out. It was great to find this calm space in the rear courtyard, out of the way of all the Light Rail construction frenzy out the front of the restaurant.

Ros and I enjoyed a bit of shopping in James Street in between rain showers after lunch while Pete and Rob looked for the best Portuguese tarts on offer.

We have another full day together here at the Goldie before departure day on Saturday. We're all hoping for some sunshine and calm seas so we can have a bit of sunny Queensland beach time before we return to encroaching cooler weather in the southern states. No matter the weather though, we always have great fun hanging out with this pair!