#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 6): Gold Coast Fisherman Co-Op x Mountview Alpaca Farm x Day Out @ Tamborine Mountain x Pacific Fair - 15 Aug 2023 - mitsueki ♥ | Singapore Lifestyle Blogger

A very very early good morning to you from Gold Coast, at 630am! In fact as the mister was up and early to capture the sunrise (he was awake by 530am?!). As I’m a relatively light sleeper, this means that he kinda woke me up a lil, so I couldn’t really go back to bed after that and hence, a rather impromptu trip to the Gold Coast Fishermen’s Co-Op happened at 7am later that morning.

Missed out on my trip so far? Read them here:

Public Holidays with Mitsueki: Happy Birthday Singapore x Pre-Trip Packing – 9 Aug 2023
#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 1): Touch Down x Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary x The Kenmore Tavern – 10 Aug 2023
#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 2): Betty’s Burgers x Day Out at Brisbane CBD x Fortitude Valley – 11 Aug 2023
#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 3): Lyell Deer Sanctuary x Luvaberry Strawberry Picking x Glass House Mountain Hiking x Eatstreet Northshore – 12 Aug 2023
#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 4): Fam Day Out at Ekka 2023 – 13 Aug 2023
#MitsuekiTravels | 11D10N Brisbane-Gold Coast Travelogue (Day 5): Yatala Pies x Pelican Feeding x Welcome to Gold Coast x Hurricane’s Grill – 14 Aug 2023

This is where the trawlers come in around 7am with their fresh catch of the day, posted on their FB and website the night beforehand so you know what’s coming in. We were lucky that they had quite a good loot on that morning with prawns, spanner crabs and bugs (a type of slipper lobster) and we bought around 1kg of cooked spanner crabs for $20, and 800g of prawns / 200g of bugs (all cooked) for $30. Overall, a great loot of $50 fresh from these fishermen. We even had a demonstration of how to deshell a bug as we have never done it before!

Moving on which was back to our Airbnb apartment for brekkie of leftover heated garlic bread x orange juice before we went to fill up the petrol tank (yay for free coffee with every pump!) as we drove towards Mountview Alpaca Farm (50 mins+ drive away).

Tuesdays are the best days to visit the farm as there is a whopping 40% off discount if you book in advance. Otherwise expect to pay $24.50 pp for a 30 mins alpaca experience (shared Alpaca between a couple or family/single) verus less than $30 AUD for 2 pax like what we did. This amount also includes a packet of alpaca feed during this experience.

To begin the experience, just head over to the gift shop to get your voucher, before going to the alpaca pen to select your Alpaca to bring around on a rope on the farm. You can also have the person to help you choose/recommend an Alpaca instead. In this case, if you want a stubborn naughty one, he’s called Digger while some sweeter and docile ones are Patches, Pixie and my favourite, Sparky! I’m sure there are others but these were the ones on rotation for the day!

After a quick introduction session on how to lead your Alpaca and some basic tips (don’t pat their heads and body, only neck and shoulders etc), you are off to the pasture area (marked off) where you can bring your Alpaca for a 30 – 60 mins walk (depending on the ticket you bought, ours was 30 mins).

Use the feed as a reward, tho sometimes it doesn’t work. Like in the case of Digger, he dug his knees in and refused to bulge. Yeah..they can be little obnoxious creatures hahahhaa. But cute all the same and the fur is so wooly like a sheep! Just be cautious as they may spit at you / kick you if they are feeling threatened. However, you should be having a great time with them like what we did – an experience I’m so glad to be able to enjoy!

Next up, off to a drive to Tamborine Mountain where there are plenty of activities and food places for you to choose from. We stopped by the town centre first to Cinnamon Bun Cafe cos I wanted to try their apple cinnamon roll and cinnamon donuts for a bite and they were quite delicious. Took this opportunity to explore the little gallery area where there are loads of quirky/homely little shops to see their wares and enjoy the atmosphere of this charming place. Bought some homemade jam and marmalade in the end 🙂

Lunch was later settled at The Codfather located further down the road as the mister wanted to have some seafood, a change from the usual meats and the like. We shared their fresh catch, cod fish and added on calamari which were beautifully fried and very delicious. The staff were super friendly too with the cook coming out to tell us how proud he was about his calamari and hope we enjoyed them. We did 🙂 P.s shout-out to the cod that was delicious too, loved it!

Moving on, we went to Witches Fall Walking trail for a bushwalking (hiking) experience (free). Personally on a scale of 1-10, I would rate this short 1 hour hike a 2-3/10 while the mister rated in 1/10. It’s quite easy, just a lil bit of climbing of steps but generally very flat ground with little rocks as compared to Glass Mountain where I would rate is 4-5/10. It’s honestly manageable, albeit the end point was a lil meh when we saw the “Witches Fall”. Nonetheless, a good way to clock up our steps and kill some calories (around 100+ calories) for abit.

Would recommend to head over to the Hang Glider point to view the hang gliders take off (weather permitting) or just come for the views especially during sunset time to take in the beautiful scenery before leaving Tamborine Mountain.

All these are the free activities, however there are many paid ones including the glow worm cave, rainforest walk, winery tours and tastings that were all on my list. However, if you’re on a budget and saving costs cos Aussie isn’t known to be cheap, then these are the free activities you can consider with your friends/family!

Our final stop for the day was to Pacific Fair shopping centre to stroll around clock steps, and pick up some groceries from Coles & Woolworths separately. It’s a nice mall, good for a visit cos it’s quite beautiful tbh.

And then we were home back to our apartment where we brought out all our seafood loot from the morning cos we were gonna be enjoying a nice feast for dinner tonight! Of cos, tho they are cooked, try to give them a nice wash off first instead of eating them straight from the bag. So there you have it, sweet spanner crabs (loved this!), slightly salty but fresh prawns and bugs with a dash of lime, with fresh strawberries and our caramel tart to end off the night while watching a Netflix movie 🙂 Oh and getting some work done too, hurhur.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading! Tmls a pretty chill day for us in Gold Coast and if you wanna find out more – stay tuned to tomorrow’s post! 🙂

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