Growing up we used to holiday on the Gold Coast in Queensland. I am not sure if they were officially classed as summer holidays as Queensland can have good beach weather all year round, but it definitely felt like a summer holiday coming from Melbourne in the Southern part of Australia. I think we used to go in the spring or Autumn school holidays for a week. From memory we went for a quite few years in a row. I remember both driving up the 1700 odd kilometres and flying on different trips. When we flew we got picked up at the airport in Coolangatta and stayed at the grand parents place of a friend in Southport. I remember catching the local bus to Surfers Paradise beach and the Cavill Ave Mall. We used to spend most of day at beach and I would spend hours in the water riding the waves on hired inflatable surf mats. Back in those days every body was working on there tan. We would be applying sun screen and oils hoping to go back to school and work with the perfect holiday complexion. We used to have lunch in the Surfer paradise beer garden.
Mum and Dad liked these holidays so much they ended up retiring to Queensland, they had a stint living at Warana Beach, 400 meters away from a nice bit of coast line on the Sunshine Coast before it got totally build out and over run just like the Gold Coast.
I now live about an hour from these old holiday designations and drop in from time to time which bring back good memories.
We would often holiday down there when my son was growing up too and we all had a go at trying to surf on a board but we never really got into it.
I suppose my son likes the place too as he has been down there with his own family now.
It feels to over crowded nowadays unless you are there very early in the morning.