Apologies for the lack of updates – I have been superbly swamped at work with aggro and tiredness….not to mention other posts that I wanted posting up immediately!

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Day 6 was a slow and leisurely morning for us. We had initially planned to drive to Brisbane, but vetoed that after reception recommended that we headed inland towards the rainforest instead, the famed Tambourine Mountains. So off we went, after making a stop at the local HSBC for some cash. We had not gone very far at all when I spotted the below shopfront…

This is the super adorable bright pink http://www.cupcakeshop.com.au/ little cupcake & cookie shop in Southport. I allowed myself one cupcake (it was about 10.30am and I just had cup noodles for breakfast). After some hard thinking (there were LOADS of pretty little things in there!) I eventually settled for the wacky Elvis cupcake – peanut butter and jelly. Yum yumx.

Mid-morning break over, we continued driving inland to the Tambourine Mountains. There is a skywalk there which brings you deep into the rain forest that we were hoping to get on….not too sure why, I’ve had more than my fair share of rainforests! The road there even resemble the roads that lead towards rainforest mountains in Malaysia, i.e. Camerons. How weird is that. There are loads of shops and restaurants on the way, and we decided to stop for a little wander about.

It is just typical that it started RAINING as we got close to the rainforest – it rained, and rained, and rained. Trouble in paradise? We took one picture and had to run for cover from shop to shop at the Gallery Walk street. Sigh. So much for hiking to a waterfall or going on the Skywalk….although I did smirk to myself slightly as I am not a rainforest sort of person .

At the end of the short commercial road, we saw the word DISTILLERY. Oooh. How lovely is that? Headed there with no hesistation at all, helped that it was sheltered. It’s less of a proper distillery, rather, it’s actually a restaurant/bistro/deli/dairy. The Liquid Amber restaurant serves up classy food like steaks and lobsters, whilst the bar serves up regular grub (i.e. burgers…posh wagyu ones) on top of their regular selection of beer. There is a deli/fromagerie as well serving cheeses and other posh deli food ‘for you to take away as a picnic’.

Of course, we went directly to the brewery for beer. For AU$10, you can get a ‘selection’ of 4 1/3rd pints.

Cool. I like it how they provided a small card explaining what the beer is like. Usually a good idea…but just look at bacon’s reaction on the beer…

Hmm. Four beers, and none of them greeted with a smile. I had a try of every one, and hated all of them to a certain degree. It was so bad that bacon failed to finish any of them. Heh. It was suprising to say the least. As we were trying to finish it admist bitter beer face, a bunch of other tourists walked past us shook their heads and said, ‘You too huh? Vile stuff’. So its not only us then.

The beer feels unfinished, a superbly heavy profusion of hops and malts with very heavy bitter aftertaste. No good. Anyway, if you’re heading that direction, it’s a good place to stop and take shelter – the restaurant looks fab anyway. Directions are available at their website here.

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There seems to be bits and pieces of ‘the old Country’ up in the mountains . Devonshire cream teas??Whatever were they thinking?

After that ‘adventure’, we headed down from the mountains to Surfer’s Paradise – we never really seen it in the day of light and it would be nice to take a walk down the beach when I’m not dead tired! We parked about a mile away from the actual heart of Surfers Paradise – nearer to Main Beach actually, as it was free parking for 4 hours…love the australian system. the nearer you get to the hub of Surfers Paradise the more expensive it is, but 1 mile is not too bad a walk, especially when you’re walking on golden sands next to the rolling surfs.

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I’m always happier by the sea – it’s like it replenishes my soul. Even in wind, I truly need to belong to the seaside.

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Bacon seems to adopt quite well to the seababy life; seeing tthat he’s a landlocked bull. No, nothing naughty, he’s a Taurean!

We came across some marvellous sand sculpture….how amazing is that?

Just proof that I was actually there

We walked along the numerous shops and eateries catering to the large profusion of tourists of all nationalities. The shops, especially those selling Australian products like UGGs. You can tell with the Japanese speaking staff in those shops, and the determined smile on the salespersons’ faces to sell you a pair of them furry boots. I was honestly on the hunt for UGGs as my last pair had died a painful death…but their pushiness just pushed me away and I didn’t actually come back from Australia with a pair !! Argh…

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was fluffy white clouds against brilliant blue skies again..

For dinner, I wanted to do something asian again. Yeah. I know this sounds exordinary, but the selection of asian restaurants/food in Australia is about 1000 times better than in the UK – i.e. in Leeds there are about 5 restaurants specialising in noodles, but none of them really tickle my tastebuds. Most are tasteless, some are overly oily but the major problem is they DO NOT GET IT. It never tastes like what it should taste like, and I can only assume they get away with it because people prefer it this way. Oh well.

After long consideration, we popped over to Southport to have a look-see, and this ramen place looked the busiest amongst the rest.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but Ichiban-Boshi was an Australian-wide chain of ramen restaurants. I had, however, have my heart set on Chicken Katsu-ju.

Yumyums. Comes with miso soup as well, which I love. I don’t get restaurants that charge for miso soup – c’mon man, its really cheap to make, and to charge me £2.50 for some miso soup??!

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Bacon went for the Ramen set, served with a side of rice,pickles and gyozas.

I found it slightly strange that it came with a full portion of rice – were you supposed to eat it just with the pickles?

My Katsu-ju was as what I expected, eggy sticky rice with chicken fried in breadcrumbs with pickles on the side. Bacon’s ramen was shoyu flavour with slices of naruto maki (the spiral steamed fish cake), sice of belly pork and other assortments. He was unhappy with the sweetcorn and seaweed, but seriously, it’s not that bad. I’ve much definately had worse.

And that was day 6 for us!

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