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Beneath a jagged skyline shaped by countless high-rise beachfront apartments, the Gold Coast is Australia's Miami Beach or Costa del Sol, a striking contrast to Brisbane, only an hour away. Aggressively superficial, it's not the place to go if you're seeking peace and quiet: the endless succession of nightclubs, bars and theme parks provide raucous, relentless entertainment. It can be enjoyable for a couple of days - perhaps as a weekend break from Brisbane - but there's little variation on the beach and nightclub scene and if you're concerned that this will leave you jaded, bored or broke you would be better off avoiding this corner of the state altogether. The coast forms a virtually unbroken beach 40km long, from South Stradbroke Island past Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads to the New South Wales border at Coolangatta . Surfers Paradise has the highest concentration of people and skyscrapers; as you head south through the strip of motels and shops the pace slows (relatively) and it's easier to find some unoccupied sand. The beaches are still touted as the main attraction, though they've become a backdrop to more commercial interests, and they swarm with bathers and board-riders all year round. Surfing blossomed here in the 1930s and still pulls in veterans and novices; Coolangatta, Burleigh Heads and South Stradbroke have the best waves and definitely the more serious surfies, but you'll find rideable swell all the way along the coast. With around three hundred days of sunshine each year there's little "off-season" as such. Rain can, however, fall at any time during the year, including midwinter - when it's usually dry in the rest of the state - but even if the crowds do thin out a little, they reappear in time for the Gold Coast Indy car race in October, and then continue to swell, peaking over Christmas and New Year. The end of the school year in mid-November also brings on the phenomenon of Schoolies Week , when thousands of high-school leavers ditch exam rooms and flock to Surfers for a few days' of hard partying, causing a budget accommodation crisis.
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