Day 4 was time for me to leave Melbourne for the Sunshine Coast. After a quick goodbye in the am *boo hoo* , we headed towards the airport to board the tiger airways flight to Gold Coast. Interesting fact: Apparently you’re allowed all the liquids you want to handcarry on domestic flights. Woo Hoo! How much of a sad loser am I to be equally amused and pleased at that flight?

Unlike Melbourne’s spotlessly blue skies, when we checked into the hotel (the very pretty Marriott Surfers’ Paradise) , the receptionist actually apologised for the weather. Hur. It was a touch and go day in Gold Coast, with the weather flip flopping from nicely sunny to grey dull clouds. It even rained – which then made us spend our first day in a shopping outlet. No pictures were taken – they all look the same all over the world. This trip was a total shambles – I did not buy anything AT ALL. Although on the way back to the hotel, we did stop for some good ol’ chicken..

Okay – don’t laugh now, but the Australian KFC is simply AMAZING. Not only do they do Hot & Spicy (the UK only offers soggy Original Recipe – more like soggy nappy), it is crispier and crunchier than that in Malaysia. They also offer the Cajun spiced – which I was informed was grilled chicken by someone, but can’t confirm this fact. I bit into the crispiest and juiciest ever piece of fried chicken I had ever come across….yums. They also do the sweet buns similar to Malaysia (nom nom nom) and get this…MASHED POTATOES!!

Now, if you’ve never been to UK’s KFC, they do not have mashed potatoes – this would be the time you’d go, “WHAT???NO MASHED POTATOES?”. Instead they offer baked beans as a side dish here. BAKED BEANS. Your regular breakfast inggredient. Yeah. I KNOW. Like seriously – that’s weird. Thus I travel around the world trying out different KFCs in search for KFC’s mashed potatoes – they do not have it in Amsterdam either….but Spain & Prague does a passable mashed potato.

The Australian version is not as tasty as the Malaysian version, but it comes pretty close! But the chicken was so good I would’ve been happy to not have mashed potato at all . However, the Australian coleslaw was super yummy – the yummiest I’ve ever had in a KFC. One gripe though – nearly all fast food eateries in Australia seem to charge for ketchup – which is totally NOT ON as I slather ketchup on my food. They also heavily salt all their food – or maybe it’s just me. I substitute salt for ketchup – and therefore do not salt my fries.

It was still bright enough (6.30pm) when we got home – enough for me to snap up close pictures of the fabulous hotel pool

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you – it’s a hotel pool designed to look like a mini beach…complete with corals, fishes and sand. Whoa…

We had not been sleeping ever since we arrived in Australia as we wanted to spend as much time with mags & bens as we can, so after a short stroll on the beach we crashed out by 10pm…because day 5 was to be a super super long day at the amusement park! Yes, we will be playing tourist at last!

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