Hello!! I’m Patrick!!
Living on the Gold Coast of Australia. My life before moving to Japan.
I was born in Sydney but moved to the Gold Coast when I was in my 20’s. I left Sydney for the Gold Coast in search of a better and more fun lifestyle. I had a few friends from Sydney who had already made the move north to beautiful Queensland so it was great for my friends and I to pick up where we left off. The following blog is a little about the Gold Coast and the life I had there.
- About the Beautiful Gold Coast!
- Things to do on the gold coast
- My working career on the Gold Coast
- My downtime when I wasn’t working
- Where I lived
- I love living in Tokyo
About the Beautiful Gold Coast!
The Gold Coast is one of Australia’s major tourist destinations and is also Australia’s largest non-capital city. It is situated on the southern Queensland coast about 70 km south of Brisbane and runs to the New South Wales border. It has a population of about 700,000 people and it’s where I lived before moving to Japan. It is quite often compared to Honolulu in Hawaii because of its golden sandy beaches, good surfing and abundance of holiday accommodation. The Gold Coast has a subtropical climate where winter days are generally in the high teens or low to mid 20s and in summer the temperatures can go into the high 30s.
Things to do on the gold coast
There is no shortage of things to do on the Gold Coast. There is Warner Bros. movie world theme park, Wet and Wild theme park, Dreamworld theme park and Sea world. There are also numerous wildlife parks to visit as well, such as Currumbin wildlife sanctuary. Just west of the main ocean strip of the Gold Coast is the Gold Coast hinterland which is dotted with rainforest pockets and beautiful little townships to visit. Mt Tambourine is one of the more popular hinterland townships where you can purchase locally made arts and crafts. There are also numerous restaurants on the Gold Coast of many cuisines from around the world, as well as a very vibrant nightlife. The kids are not forgotten with lots of amusements and plenty of beautiful parks to visit. The beaches are beautiful with fine golden sand and the surfing is great. Fishing is also a very popular past time on the Gold Coast.
My working career on the Gold Coast
I lived on the Gold Coast for quite a long time and had a few different positions whilst I was there. I drove tour buses, trucks, worked in construction and also engineering. My tour bus work consisted of airport transfers as well as tours of the Gold Coast, the Gold Coast hinterland and Brisbane. My truck driving work consisted mainly of delivering prefabricated house frames to new building sites all through south-east Queensland and Northern New South Wales. My engineering type work consisted of managing the maintenance department of one of Queensland‘s largest fabrication companies.
My downtime when I wasn’t working
The Gold Coast has a very relaxed atmosphere. It is very common for people to congregate at other people’s houses for barbecues and parties. In summer barbecuing either at home or in one of the many parks around the Gold Coast is a favorite pastime. Lunchtime barbecues with friends was a great way to spend your weekends. I enjoyed doing a little bit of surfing and also working on motor vehicles. I have a very rare 1979 Ducati motorcycle and a 1948 Packard hot rod (check out the pictures, they’re really cool).
Where I lived
My house on the Gold Coast is situated in the hinterland just west of the main tourist strip. It’s funny that my street address in Australia is Tanaka Avenue Bonogin which is a very Japanese name. My house is a 300 m² residence with five bedrooms, two bathrooms (one with a large spa), a theatre room with a three meter wide screen, large kitchen, fireplace, fully ducted air conditioning and heating, three garages and a separate apartment with kitchen and bathroom. The land is 5500 m² but a lot of it is bush. It is a very different lifestyle living at this house compared to living in Tokyo. There is no bus or train or any form of public transport. Both my wife and I need to have a car each to go anywhere. If we need to buy anything such as milk or bread it’s a 10 to 15 minute drive. Being surrounded by nature is worth the inconvenience of no public transport. We quite often have kangaroos, possums, cockatoos (a type of parrot), kookaburras (a noisy Australian bird), scrub turkeys and other animals in our yard. We occasionally get snakes as well but not too many and they will usually slither away if they are disturbed. I also love living at this house because it allows me to work on my hobbies which are my motorcycle and my hot rod. We also used to do a lot of entertaining in the form of barbecues or dinners with friends. We would quite often invite many people to our house for a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime barbecue or a Saturday night dinner. Quite often the lunchtime barbecues would end up rolling into dinner.
I love living in Tokyo
That was the life I had before I moved to Tokyo. As you can imagine it is very different from the lifestyle I have now, but I love living in Tokyo. Tokyo is a great city to live in and has all the conveniences you could ever want. But at the same time the Gold Coast is a beautiful place with a very relaxed and nice lifestyle so I love living in both places.
