Your mind is made, your bags are packed, and your one-way ticked is booked.
It’s time to relocate to the strange and sunny coastlines of the Gold Coast. Those born and raised here can’t even begin to imagine what a frightfully fantastic occasion this must be.
Though everyone’s experience will prove extraordinarily different, here are a few things you can pretty much bank on…
1. You’ll inaugurate yourself with a night (or five) in Surfers Paradise complete with 4am margarita pizza and too many selfies taken on the back of a man-powered rickshaw.
2. You’ll decide you’re far too mature for the antics of Surfers Paradise and upgrade yourself to the likes of Nobbys/Broadbeach/Coolangatta/anywhere but Surfers…
3. … only to accidentally forget your maturity and regress back to Surfers Paradise the following weekend, letting things slide even further down the scale of dignity with a trip to both Hollywood Showgirls and Shooters.
4. The route to Byron Bay will become so imprinted in your mind that you could rattle off the Pacific Highway exits in your sleep.
5. Many Sunday mornings will be spent sitting under a waterfall watching the sunrise through a valley in Springbrook, because the view from Burleigh Heads National Park will start getting old (but you’ll still be posting Instagram pics of you gazing over Burleigh Beach in active wear captioned, “never gets old”).
6. Great despair will come from the URL: seek.com.au/jobs/in-All-Gold-Coast-QLD
7. You’ll start a door knocking survey on Hedges Avenue in which the first question is “how exactly do you make your money on the Gold Coast?”
8. Being stuck at a set of lights for more than three minutes will make you genuinely entitled to the statement, “traffic was a nightmare.”
9. There will be a moment when you find yourself privately wishing for a real winter, one with legitimate winter clothes and open fires and mulled wine and a few flakes of snow.
10. A bout of restlessness will take you to Brisbane and see you desperately apologetic for all the “it’s not a real city” statements you slashed around when justifying your move to the Gold Coast.
11. You’ll be crowned a local on discovery of the not-so-secret Secret Currumbin rock pools.
12. You’ll decide Currumbin Valley is your favourite place on earth, declaring that every special event in your life moving forward must take place here… Not excluding the birth of your first child in which you will roll out a Yoga mat and squat stream-side channeling Simone Thurberin in the Daintree.
13. Planning a holiday will become increasingly difficult—competing with paradise is no easy feat.
14. Learning to surf, stand-up paddleboard, or do something moderately cool involving the ocean will become a high priority.
15. Owning more bikinis/boardies than underwear won’t seem ridiculous.
16. Moaning about the weather will become completely acceptable when Nine Gold Coast News announces anything worse than “partly cloudy and 25 degrees”.
17. Thanks to the weather in your new home, working out will be a year-round affair. *Sigh*
18. Boating on anything less than 12-feet long will become a little embarrassing.
19. Terms like “Aquaduck”, “togs”, “Straddie”, “Fishos”, and “Paccas” will actually mean something.
20. Hearing that someone spent $45,000 on plastic surgery won’t make you flinch.
21. You’ll find yourself completely unsure of how you actually feel about the Gold Coast; hearing yourself moaning and groaning about a distinct lack of culture one day, then singing its praise as a euphoric heaven on earth the next.
Photo Credit: Hayley Williamson for Metropolist