About Main Beach
Getting there
It was about 7:30am when our mate Graeme knocked on our caravan door and asked if we’d seen the news – it as about the 300mm of rain that had hit the Gold Coast area overnight. This is where we were about to head off to later that morning! So, it was onto the internet to check flood watches and ABC news for any guidance we could take to safely travel “down the range” from Stanthorpe to the Gold Coast. The normal route would have taken us through Beaudesert and Mudgeeraba BUT that’s where the 300mm had hit – so we set out to take the longer route through Ipswich (Route map).
It’s always a hard drive completing the Cunninghams Gap, which is a pass over the Great Dividing Range, but we took our time using the Landcruiser’s sport mode gears to slow our downhill progress – all good.
Accommodation
We’ve stayed in the Main Beach Tourist Park before (about 10 years ago) but not in our larger sized Bailey caravan. The caravan park is pretty old and was developed before the 21ft generation of caravans but still very popular, hard to book into and very expensive, being located opposite the beach (maplink) and a 5 minute walk to Tedder Avenue (the heart of the Main Beach Village).
We were provided with 2 sites due to the length of our 21’6″ caravan. This caravan park, being an older type of park, with their smaller sized powered sites did this for most of the modern sized vans in our street.
Catching up with mates
One of our main reasons for coming back to Main Beach was to catch up with really special friends, something we always try to do when we’re in the Gold Coast area.
First up it was off to Shuck in Tedder Avenue to catch up with our best buddy, Laird, and have a few drinks before then moving just down the road to Lemongrass Thai On Main Beach – one of the nicest Thai Restaurants in Australia. It was a fantastic 1st night back in Main Beach as we also got to catch up with Laird’s daughter & hubby with their beautiful new baby daughter.
The next day we were off to catch up with another great mate, Tracey, at Burleigh Heads Surf Club for lunch. A lovely 3 hours spent on the front deck of the club’s restaurant was fantastic.
Celebrating the 2022 AFL Grand Final in Tedder Avenue
The AFL Grand Final is one of the biggest sporting days of the year and this time we were in Main Beach for it. The day began with Merrisa going shopping and me going for a spin in Laird’s new boat (he seems to always have a new boat each time we visit 🤣). See if you can pick the new boat…
Then it was off to Domanis Café Restaurant Bar in Tedder Avenue to watch the AFL Grand Final with some of Laird’s buddies and it was a very noisy and fun afternoon. Robbie Williams kicked it off with the pre-game entertainment and he totally rocked. The actual game, between the Geelong Cats and Sydney Swans, was so disappointing as the Cats absolutely smashed the score board making it a one sided boring affair.
Day trip to O’Reilly’s in the Hinterland
Day 3 in Main Beach saw us catching up with our pre-Tagalong travel buddies, Liam & Jackie, for a trip up to O’Reilly’s in the Hinterland (maplink). We’ve been there before and the road up is always a bit hairy but, this time was after a lot of heavy rain and there were pot-holes everywhere (route map).
This visit did not really showcase O’Reilly’s as it was school holidays and there were so many people up there, the beautiful birds were either over-fed or scared away. It was still a lovely place to re-visit with a stroll along the Booyong Walk through the rain forest. There were some cute birds called Rufous Fantails flitting about in the under-growth, who presented a challenge to see who could photograph them.
Summing up…
- Accommodation – Main Beach Tourist Park (07) 5667 2720
- Cost per night – $91.00 (@ 23_Sep-2022 – School Holidays)
- Stayed for – 4 nights
- Facilities – Very new and very nice
- CP Location – 3600 Main Beach Parade, Main Beach
- Our rating/score – 8/10
- Was it a nice town to visit? – Yes – always love coming here
- Activities & places of interest – plenty to do – we mainly chilled
- Tourist info centre? – Marine Parade, Southport (07) 5582 8211
- Would we return? – Definitely
- We rate the town – 9/10
- Overall thoughts – It was great to return to one of our favourite locations and to catch up with our mates while here.