Tag Archives: Kurrawa Beach

Tree Planting Tallebudgera

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A couple of weeks ago, the three of us did something really good for the environment, we planted some trees in Tallebudgera Creek. The day was really beautiful, there were so many people from the local community who seemed to be doing this quite a lot. The mood was great, people were laughing, we all were efficient and we were surrounded by countless kookaburras. It was a beautiful morning that did the nature and our souls good.

The rest of the day was spent by the beach, mom took a dip in the ocean on this side of the world for the first time. Glorious with winter bath’s (21C in the ocean), isn’t it 😅

Summer Solstice

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Summer solstice, three days before Christmas Eve?
Yeah, this will take some time to get used to.

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Rainbow Bay + Snapper Rocks

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Coolangatta is such a pretty place. But so far away from Central Gold Coast. Isn’t it crazy that the Gold Coast reaches a massive 70km along South East Queensland’s coast? Beaches as far as the eye can see ❤️

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Spring down under

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We sprang into spring so fast that apparently we skipped spring altogether and went straight from winter into summer. Honestly, I don’t mind. But it was a bit weird going from twenty, kinda still using the electric heater during the nights to 30C, sweaty nights and uncertainty regarding what layers to bring when you leave the house.

This weekend, we have had over 30C, while we both have had colds. Mikael since last Saturday and I since Tuesday evening. It hasn’t been the worst cold we’ve ever had, but it is so stubborn and manifests differently every day. Today, it was all about itchy throats that made us both cough a lot. Yesterday, I was heavy in my sinuses, runny nose and feverish and a couple of days before that, it was just my sinuses burning and another day feverish joints. Super weird.

Today was officially the first day of spring, our second season down under. I’m sure it’s not just gonna be constantly 30C from now on, so I’m looking forward to some “lagom” spring warmth. Although, I really don’t mind 30C. I love this!

Even if we don’t feel our best at the moment, we still walked down to the beach today to look a little at the Lifesaving world championship. Unfortunately, we got there a bit late due to other more urgent errands today, but we managed to see the Roundup of open ocean relay. Or something? Honestly, it is just so interesting to see something I have never even heard of before. This looked like they were several in a team, running laps on sand and then leaving some surf ski rowing to another team mate. On Friday, I was there for a few more hours and watched them run in the sand after some sticks and one person was eliminated every race. And also ocean board race and surf ski and swim rescue.

Sweden is here competing. Which is weird, we don’t really have any lifeguards, do we? And Czechia? They don’t even have any oceans? Anyway, Australia and South Africa seem to be the countries winning the most.

Sunsets here are beautiful, even if the sun doesn’t set over the ocean here on the east coast.
This was Friday’s swim rescue. First, one guy swam out to a buoy, once they reached it, another guy started running from the sand with a pair of fins and a floating device (put on the fins while swimming out there). Then swimming back with the first guy. And were then met up by two rescuers from land who dragged the rescuee (the first one) up on shore. Intense!
Last night’s sunset was also beautiful!
This morning, we had a new neighbor just outside! A stingray in the canal! How cool isn’t that? It was massive! I wonder if we will ever see any bull sharks.
From today’s competition.

More beach volleyball

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What an amazing day it has been! The weather has been flawless, 25C and basically no clouds. Winter’s not too bad, haha! It just started though, I am counting on it getting colder.

This morning started with my alarm going off at 5am. I was hunting sunrises! Me and a couple of girls were gonna do some drills on the beach while the sun rose. Unfortunately, the poles were down at Surfer’s so we had to go down to Kurrawa and actually missed when the sun rose above the horizon. I guess I will have to do this again sometime.

I had such an amazing feeling after this morning, the sun was so warm, I was hungry and read on the beach until Mikael joined up so we could go to Elk Espresso and have a really nice brunch.

After that, I went in the ocean for the first time since getting here, in my new swimsuit. It was incredible! Wow! Mikael definitely missed out.

At 3pm, the next beach session of the day started for me, but this time social 4s and 2s with Beach Volleyball Gold Coast and Mikael got a haircut. I only did 4s today. My foot is really swollen after a mysterious twisting a week ago. It looks really bad and now it has started to hurt even when I’m running in sand, previously it was only hurting when I was walking on flat ground. Oh well.

Dinner at home in front of the latest Star Wars series The Acolyte and now bed. Such a long but magical day! The sun makes you tired and so does two two hour beach sessions, haha!

Goodnight!

SeaFire 2024

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First official day of winter is here! And what a day it has been. I had 16k steps before Mikael and my day even begun so to say that I’m tired would be an understatement.

Today, instead of Mikael being out early going for a run, he slept in while I spent the morning at the beach playing social beach volleyball with BVGC again. Stella from Wednesday was there again and we started strong together and kept going strong. It was so much fun! The morning started with no wind, no sun, but still like 20C. Optimal conditions. The wind took off a bit later, but wasn’t too bad. 3 hours later, and I was done! Got to talk a bit more with the locals, and apparently there is only social beach volley over here. No organized trainings or groups  for development. Like where are all the good teams? Apparently they all move to Europe to continue with their beach volleyball careers.

After a shower back at the granny flat, we took the tram up to Cavill Ave where we first had lunch at Pancakes in Paradise (savory mushroom and chicken crepe and sweet pancakes with syrup and chocolate fudge), then some shopping (Mikael got a pair of thongs and a sweater for $60, this years bikini models didn’t fit me at all either, so I will wait for my old ones to be sent down, haha) and then the big event of the evening: SeaFire!

SeaFire is a fireworks competition that I think goes yearly? Anyway, we had little expectations, just heard that there would be fireworks on 1st June. We were not disappointed! There were three firework displays, Italy first at 6pm, then UK at 7pm and Australia finale at 8pm. They all had choreography to music; Italy more towards local opera and such, UK to a little bit of everything and Australia movie music. Italy was good, some parts of UK was good and Australia was very relatable with Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and more. It was a great experience! And the displays were all non-comparably better than GP’s New Years firework in Gothenburg. Shot from boats out in the water and viewed from the beach with thousands of other people was magical! It was raining quite a bit, and we were super cold in the middle of it all, still soaked when we go back home, but it stopped before the final. Stella joined us too. She’s here on a WHV (working holiday visa) and will move on to Perth on Monday – we had a good couple of days together).

All in all, great day!

In short: yesterday we didn’t do much. We learned how Aussies recycle (everything recyclable in one bin, everything else in the other). And in general, it’s very clean here. Hardly any garbage on the street at all. No chewing gums, no trash, no nothing. Some shopping carts here and there (but that might be because we live close to a shopping center). The public restrooms are also very clean! Back home, I would hold it until I was back home, but here, no worries at all.

Videos from the display are on my Instagram, under highlights “Down under”. I should be able to upload videos here, but the wifi here is just too bad…

Surfer’s Paradise. Super touristy. Not for us. But now we’ve seen it!

Beach volleyball

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We slept much better last night, but were still super tired when we woke up and didn’t leave bed until like 10:30. Started the day with a little bit of shopping since I’m missing sport bras for instance. Found one at LSKB, another brand I’ve never seen before, there are lots of new stores around here, and got to use it for my first beach volleyball session later. We also got some food at Woolworths.

Beach Volleyball Gold Coast had social games today at 3:30pm and I was a bit nervous about the wind. Even if it was strong, it was consistent and I tried to use it as best as I could which actually felt really good, up until the point where I got a set from a player I didn’t know and didn’t time it at all. My reception was surprisingly good, and most of the setting. We also played 4vs4 and mixed which also confused me a lot, haha. But it was so much fun playing again (even if it was only a week ago I played back home) and the sand at the beach was so fine! I could get used to this.

We had dinner at a pub nearby and then walked back home through the more central parts of Broadbeach.

Chicken and mushroom pie with coleslaw and chips.

First day in Mermaid Waters

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First day in Gold Coast. Last night, we were so tired and went to bed at 8pm. Set the alarms for 8am. I woke up at 6 and just couldn’t go back to sleep and finished The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, the third and last Mistborn book (review can be found here, this is still a travel and book blog 🤓) – WOW! Mikael didn’t wake up at 8, but that was fine since I wasn’t done with the book just yet. At 10, he started to move a little and at noon we were ready to walk 5 minutes to Pacific Fair, the big shopping mall. On today’s agenda was buying food and sunscreen, which is a bit of a jungle. It’s important to buy the right one due to chemicals and stuff. Good thing it’s cheaper here than in Sweden, but the good ones are as expensive, if not more so. Shopping at Woolworths was fun, but surprisingly similar to a Swedish store. I was prepared for something completely different, like in the US. I remember loving going grocery shopping there because it was so different. I guess it was different here as well, obviously, but not as much. There were many things we recognized, but also so many more options of everything. It took us a while to go through a fraction of it, haha.

Our next stop was the beach. We’ve been here three days now and I haven’t seen the beach. It took us maybe 20 min to walk to the beach and got there just in time for the sun to set behind the skyscrapers. It was not cold with full pants and a thin cardigan, but it wasn’t warm either. Even if it is around 20C, it’s not really warm. When it’s 20 back home, it is warm. Definitely different climates.

The beach is huge! It’s super wide and as long as you can see! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beach this big, haha! And the sand was squeaky, hilarious. I wonder how that affects playing beach volleyball.

The waves were pretty high, and there was only one place on the beach where you could go swimming, right in front of a lifeguard tower. There was a detailed sign about today’s conditions. The water was 23C while it was only 19C on land.