Coolangatta

For the past 3 days I’ve found myself living in an episode of “The Golden Girls”. In a bid for backpacker freedom we elected to bypass the high rises and party bars of Surfer’s Paradise and continued 30 mins south to a sleepy town called Coolangatta. There are still a few high rises but not a single party bar. In fact everywhere closes down at 5pm and by six o’clock the streets are eerily deserted of people and cars. I don’t know where everyone disappears. Definitely not the cinema as we were the only people at the film we went to last night. We see people about during the day on the beach and having lunch, but by sundown it’s a reverse vampire phenomenon. It’s an odd little place and I feel like we’ve gone back in time. In a way we have, as the state border between Queensland and New South Wales splits the town and as NSW has put their clocks forward for spring you can lose an hour just by crossing the street.
We’re staying in a Motel called the ‘Sunset Strip’. With a name like that you’d half expect to see some hookers knocking around or at least some crazy kids throwing wild parties. Mind you the town itself has Cool in its name and is anything but so go figure. The ‘Sunset Strip’ would be described by an estate agent as having: ‘original seventies features in all rooms’ or by anyone else as badly needing a facelift. The other residents are all over sixty in varying states of dodderiness and blue rinsed hair. Scintillating discussions over dinner have ranged from the war (not sure which one, possibly the Boer) to the breed of mango best used for cooking. Makes an intellectual change from hearing how many sambucas were sculled the previous night. On a more positive note the kitchen is industrial sized (with a walk-in refrigerator) as is the dining area that spookily reminds me of ‘The Shining’, a thought I try to keep to the back of my head as I walk the long corridor to the bathroom in the middle of the night. A strange side effect of being surrounded by old people is that we feel compelled to whisper all the time. Anyway, onto Byron Bay and back into the noughties tomorrow, where hopefully we’ll regain the power of speech and I’ll be able to get a hair cut (scared of coming out with a set and blue rinse if I ventured into a hairdresser here).