Surfers Paradise lost.
So there I was on my very first pilgrimage to Australia’s Gold Coast. It was early 2009, the Quiksilver Pro was in town, Kelly Slater was riding a Wizard Sleeve and I was performing the various rituals associated with the aforementioned spiritual journey. Circumambulating the Captain Cook memorial etc. By day, I would wander across the Snapper Rocks, documenting things I experienced for Surfing Magazine. By night, locals would regale me with stories and this is where I first became aware of “schoolies.
From what I could tell, schoolies were an important coming-of-age tradition where Australian youth travel to Surfers Paradise after finishing exams and spend a week digging all the way in to the country’s cultural vapidity. Without schoolies, Australian boys would never learn how to leer. Australian girls would remain unfamiliar with chardonnay.
Existential horror brewing, then, as this year’s schoolies festivities are under threat of cancellation due there being no beach. But you remember Cyclone Alfred and the glorious perfection it created last Australian summer. Citizen cop Joel Parkinson becoming very barreled. Mick Fanning too. Great times but not without cost. The Gold Coast’s beaches remain mostly absent to this day, sand washed right away.
A Queensland government spokesperson, attempting to tamp down the potential loss of Australian identity declared, “We have been working closely with the City of Gold Coast on the best location for the schoolies hub. The council has been working hard to get the beaches back to a suitable condition following unprecedented beach erosion in Surfers Paradise following ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.”
Mayor Mark Hammel added, “The city is working with the state government to confirm details on this year’s Safer Schoolies initiative. With the closure of The Esplanade coinciding with schoolies this year, there will be even more space to host events and entertainment.”
But what is schoolies without The Esplanade?
Without the beach?
A farce is what.
Dark days down under.
The Goldy is the closest thing to middle Merica except it has beaches. The place is a depressing wasteland.
Saw a young girl at the store last night buying a drink I’d not heard of yet
Wine energy drink mashup deal.
Don’t like wine or caffeine, but was impressed by the juice box it came in
Fuck it was good. Broke in a gorgeous half filipino. Before that broke my forced abstinence due to male friends proximities with a cute chubby girl on the beach, I warned her but she still tried to guzzle that three weeks of 21 yo build up. Not a hope the poor thing. Smoked heaps of the local produce. Fucken ripper.
Xox
https://youtu.be/IfYqxXa2bec?si=2h45zM2EcUuzdsTF
Do run clubs, entrepreneur workshops and syntropic enemas count as culture though?
Farrk were have you been mate. Schoolies shifted to Bali years ago. Goldy is for kooks.
And Byron for the kids with money
such a low key town, don’t recall money
Chardonnay?
You went way too high there – it’s fruity lexia goon bags.
Vodka
in a plastic bottle
Was just a joke I heard 15 years ago innit
I dreamed myself an Australian at the tender age of 6. I will make that dream come true! Can I sleep on your couch for a min?
In college I studied abroad in San Sebastian. Since I didn’t have any other options and it worked once, I was taking a 3.5 hr commuter train from San Sebastian to Mundaka when it was good enough to surf. But lots of weird things happened to me on that train.
One time I was on my way back from Mundaka in the early evening. The train was largely empty. The train stopped in a large village and a bunch of drunk kids got on. The next village even more drunk kids got on. Pretty quickly the train was filled with drunk kids. I was sitting there with my 6’6″ and some very pretty girls started talking to me and were being somewhat direct. Apparently they were all going to some festival or party at a local town and they were trying to get me to go. I was doing the math in my head but the potential these were 14 year olds or something along with dealing with my board and wetsuit had me decline. And as soon as the train hit the station near the festival the train became deserted again. I kinda wish I got off the train just to see where all these kids were going.
Einsteins island?
Well, he sufficiently baited you into typing out a bit of a screed, so I’d say that to the extent that rage baiting was Chas’s intention, it worked.
TLDR “In essence, the text is a performative, insulting summary meant to belittle and provoke.”
Iconic Hemsworth shot from Home and Away there. Right about the same epoch as my schoolies trip in ‘02. Same dress shirt with print too (mine was an Insight from memory)
Here’s one for you. What’s the difference between the Gold Coast and a tub of yoghurt left out in the sun?
The tub of yoghurt will have more culture.
Who’s the babe with him?
Irene?
C’mon…
Lleyton Hewitt’s wife?
Apparently that’s how Slater got his schoolie-osis…
go off grid for a few days, return to see the end of BG foretold , Australian bacchanals canceled , etc , wild days
Gonna have to wait for all the Aussies to wake up for comments on this one.
You don’t go to schoolies to sit on the beach. You go to get drunk at a cheap hotel with your mates and hopefully get laid.