Posted by Cordelia Kennedy on
March 4, 2010
How To Have A Smooth Flowing Australian Holiday
When you are looking to have the most wonderful holiday experience then you should make plans to visit the Gold Coast region of Australia. No matter where you are traveling from to visit there are many reasons that you will find the Gold Coast as a wonderful region. There are three main factors to having the best possible experience while visiting the Gold Coast, and they will be outlined in the latter part of this article.
Balance Your Time- The Gold Coast is a beautiful region, scenic and filled with things to do. Having the best possible holiday experience means balancing your lazy days on the beach with days filled with activities. It is a delicate balance, but one that will make for the best possible holiday. Be sure that the day you arrive and the one right before you leave are lazy beach days. Trying to accomplish too many activities is a mistake while visiting this region. Alternate activity days with beach days and you will have the best of both worlds.
Project In Advance- try to lay out the essential prospects of your travel considerably in advance. Utilize the web to reach the information you desire and to make bookings. The farther you set up matters in advance, the greater chance you will get everything you are looking for, and this will establish the most roaring holiday.
Learning The Rules Of The Region- If you are traveling to the Gold Coast for the first time then a good thing to do is look up the rules of the region. Although traffic rules are a great place to start, you will also want to familiarize yourself with all the beach rules as well. Knowing the rules will keep you safe during your trip, as well as learning the region terminology and language.
The Gold Coast region will provide you with wonderful holiday memories for the rest of your life. Whether you are looking to relax, let loose or do a little bit of both, this is the holiday destination for you!
When you are looking for gold coast hotels the best place to log onto is www.goldcoastinformation.com.au. They have all the information that you need to plan a wonderful vacation.
Posted by Cordelia Kennedy on
February 14, 2010
Shopping On The Incredible Gold Coast
Surely you will not find yourself with nothing to do if you choose the Gold Coast as your nest holiday destination. As a matter of fact there is so much to do on the Gold Coast that you may have to relocate to this location if you really want to have the time to truly appreciate all that this destination has to offer.
The Gold Coast is full of exciting water activities, amusement parks and a vast array of shopping experiences. In fact shopping is something you can do for days and days without ever getting bored or visiting the same stores more than once. There are many large shopping complexes located in convenient areas to entertain all types of shoppers.
The Pacific Fair complex is the Gold Coasts most incredible shopping experience. This is an indoor/outdoor shopping center has around 300 retailers including unique shops, banks, a post office and many wonderful dinning locals. This complex also has medical services available, should the need for medical attention arise.
The Pacific Fair complex also is home to popular retailers such as K Mart, Target, Lowes and Toys R Us. Then there are smaller, locale retail shops for jewelery, clothing, and books. On top of all this you can pamper yourself with a hair cut and manicure at a wonderful salon or talk a walk and enjoy the parks, greenery, lakes and streams. If you are visiting with children there is a play park as well, so that they can have a little fun themselves while you are visiting from one retail shop to another.
And while there are many things to do and see on the Gold Coast, if shopping is your thing then you will definitely want to make a visit to the Pacific Fair complex. An incredible shopping bonanza, a trip to this shopping complex is a great way to spend an afternoon strolling around and taking in a delicious lunch or dinner.
There are numerous surfers paradise accommodation for you choose from for your upcoming trip. To find gold coast hotels that are suitable for your stay visit www.goldcoastinformation.com.au.
Posted by Cordelia Kennedy on
February 1, 2010
Expansion At The Gold Coast Airport Makes Travel Simpler
The is no place better to visit, than the Gold Coast or Australia. There is everything that you can ever want from a vacation all in one great region. Gold Host has wonderful beaches, fabulous accommodations, great amusement parks and some of the most entertaining attractions around. No matter where you decide to stay, the Gold Coast has much to offer for that perfect vacation experience.
Since the Gold Coast airport caters to around five million passengers a year, over one million of them from an international destination, they have recently renovated the airport to double its original size. This expansion will allow the airport to provide more options when flying to the Gold Coast and will also bring in reduced fairs.
The new terminal will have some economically friendly airlines, and they feel that this will assist in stimulating the economy of the region. There are so many wonderful, and unbelievable, ticket deals that they hope the tourism rate will continue to increase at a rapid pace and help boost the Australian economy.
Among the new airline, in the expansion terminal, you will find two of the most budget friendly airliners. Tigr and AirAsia will be joining the Gold Coast in the attempt to fly international passengers in and out of the Gold Coast region. Not only is the Gold Coast one of the most rapid growing tourist regions in Australia, it is also the gateway for many other Australian destination. This new expansion will allow more flights to come in and out, both international and domestic.
If you have been wanted to travel to Australia but could not fit it into your budget, now you will have your chance. Prices for a flight have never been lower or simpler. Do a little research online and start planning your next trip to one of the most memorable vacation destinations that you have ever visited.
For the best deals and variety in surfers paradise hotels, visit goldcoastinformation.com.au today. Whether you are looking for surfers paradise accommodation or any other locale, visit us today.
Posted by Victor C. Krumm on
September 23, 2009
The Magnificent Costa Rica Arribada: Invasion Of Olive Ridley Sea Turtles

She waited 500 yards offshore in the tropical warm eastern Pacific ocean off Ostional Beach. Only fifteen the olive ridley sea turtle was in a small land that Christopher Columbus had named “Costa Rica”, the “rich coast” 500 years earlier.
The nearly daily afternoon rains of October had ended as the marine turtle waited expectantly. The moon was in its final quarter and, though she did not know why, it was having an effect on her.
A dozen meters away, a second olive ridley sea turtle joined her, followed by a dozen, then hundreds, thousands, and soon tens of thousands, all waiting quietly. For epochs the moon has silently passed its timeless phases that affect the world’s tides-and today it was bringing her ashore this night, just as it had led her forebears to ancestral nesting beaches for more than one hundred million years.
Nature is always magical. Just a few months ago, this turtle was living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean more than 2,500 miles away. And the multitude of sea turtles now alongside her were scattered over more than a million square miles of ocean.
Though food was plentiful far out in the Pacific, something was stirring inside her. She and hundreds of thousands like her felt the same need to return to Ostional Beach. They had to go back to where they had hatched.
Now, as she waited in the soft moonlight, she was ready. Over the thousands of miles she had swum she had been bred by several different males in the clear tropical waters because, somehow, they, too, were being affected by something unseen, a force primeval. It was something so compelling that it had been bringing her species back to the same Costa Rica beach since the days of dinosaurs.
In the tropical night this olive ridley sea turtle was waiting. She had somehow found to the very beach where she had hatched in 1995. We do not know how a Pacific marine turtle finds the exact beach where she started life. There are only a few nesting beaches on earth and they are not very big. Indeed Ostional Beach is only a few hundred meters in length. Now part of Costa Rica’s Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, it is without a doubt the most important olive ridley marine turtle nesting site on the planet. Wonderfully, in 1995, the year this turtle hatched, perhaps as many as 500,000 female olive pacific sea turtles had come ashore to nest here in huge waves. These massive invasions are called “arribadas.”
Unfortunately, our sea turtle’s mother will not join her to nest at Ostional this year even though for the last two decades, she had been part of massive Ostional arribadas several times every year. Not long ago, she drowned in an illegal shrimping net on her way back to the ancient nesting grounds. It was a needless waste since it could have been avoided by the simple use of an internationally required, but typically ignored, law requiring a turtle escape device. Thousands more were destroyed in what is politely called “incidental catch” by long line fishermen who refuse to use larger hooks that would prevent tragedy to this magnificent and ancient creature. And, no one knows how many thousands were killed awfully by eating carelessly discarded plastic bags. And, of course, there has been the ceaseless pillaging of nests: millions of eggs from just a few small, precious beaches.
Of course, the hundreds of thousands of olive ridleys just offshore know none of this. As we look out over the water in the pale moonlight, there are now so many that it almost seems one could walk on their backs for at least a mile. We stand in awe at the sheer magnitude of God’s creation. They don’t know or comprehend that they were on this planet long before there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They don’t know that we are waiting for them to come ashore so that when they lay their eggs on this tiny wildlife refuge, men, women, and children will legally raid their nests and take 1,000,000 eggs in return for protecting the rest of the clutches and preserving the species. They only know that this is where they are meant to be.
Then, though we do not know why, it happens. It is as though the same quiet voice that told them to come and provided flawless directions to a tiny sand beach thousands of miles away, the same silent command that demanded they wait offshore, now tells them it is time to come ashore. As quietly as they first appeared offshore, as silently as they gathered for days and weeks, their patience has been rewarded. They begin to come to the beach. A single olive ridley marine turtle is followed by a second, then another and another. Soon there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands—even more than that. All on a particular little beach. They come in increasing numbers all night. More arrive in the day. All day, day after day. It is the magnificent Ostional Arribada of Costa Rica. As timeless as the moon itself, it is the spectacular reaffirmation of life itself.
Posted by David Phillips on
August 20, 2009
Skerries Lighthouse, Holyhead Bay, Coastal Navigator and Bird Sanctuary
Yachtsmen and women across the Irish Sea will probably have sailed past Skerries Lighthouse in Holyhead Bay, off North West Anglesey, Wales at some time or other in their sailing career. Whether they approach, from Dublin in the west, Port St Mary, Isle of Man to the north or nearby Pwllheli, Skerries rock and light soon comes into view. In fact the white flashing light of this modern automated 23 m high Trinity House lighthouse can be seen 22 miles away.
And Skerries rock is also home to one of the largest tern colonies in the world, which are monitored by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) who occasionally send a team out to the rock. But just go back over 200 years in history and there was barely any navigational help on this treacherous Anglesey coast. Then in 1713 Irishman William Trench took out a 99 year lease on the rock from local landowner William Robinson, and events soon took on a new dynamic.
Mr Trench was a determined man and his efforts paid off and when in 1716 the first Skerries Lighthouse started operating. Compared to todays modern lighthouse it was only a 35 foot high tower with an open grate, and a coal burning flame for a light. To make it worth his efforts, William Trench used his business skills and charged a fee on all passing ships except the British Navy based on their tonnage.
Levies charged in 1730 amounted to as much as $2,200 each year, a significant reward for the time. And over the following years the annual fees increased so that they were about $23,000 in 1828. During this time ownership of Skerries Lighthouse changed a few times and significantly in 1841, Trinity House paid $990,000 for the freehold, a very large figure for the 19th century.
Sailing through the gap between the Skerries Rock and Carmel Head on Anglesey, known as Langdon Ridge, can be a tough challenge for sailors even in fine conditions. In fact, some yachtsmen choose not to go through this channel at Langdon, especially at night because of the strong currents and closeness of the rocks. A full flood tide from Holyhead can push your boat along quickly towards Cemlyn Nature Reserve and Wylfa Power Station. These waters have now attracted the interest of tidal energy companies wanting to provide green, alternative energy.
It’s fantastic sailing around the Anglesey coast. Either from a boat or the coastal path you can appreciate rich and diverse marine wildlife - razorbills, porpoises, seals, and puffins. As you pass Skerries just imagine the efforts of young Trench, and the ships since saved by the reassuring presence of these Anglesey Lighthouses. A flotilla of kayaks can sometimes be seen leaving Church Bay on an expedition to Skerries lighthouse. They need to get the tide and wind right to avoid being carried way off course.
So over 250 years ago William Trench started the Skerries Lighthouse story and it has been a colourful one since. The rock witnessed the end of sail and advent of steam, and the lighthouse keepers would have admired famous ships like the Great Eastern and Royal Charter, as well as seen numerous wrecks. Yachts and kayaks sometimes visit the rock and this Anglesey Lighthouse, while a large tern colony exists on the rock.
