A Gold Coast escape with Tim Davies
That holiday feeling starts in Queensland.
Updated
Five days. Two eight-year-olds. One whirlwind forecast. Tim Davies takes his nephews on the kind of Gold Coast trip that becomes family folklore.
The Gold Coast: where family holiday dreams are made. Tourism and Events Queensland
Tim Davies is no stranger to travel. The Today Show weather presenter spends much of the year moving between airports and hotel check-ins. So, what is it that makes a trip actually feel like a break when you practically live out of a suitcase?
On a recent Queensland getaway to the Gold Coast with twin nephews Oliver and Lincoln, the answer came via rollercoasters, hot sand and the magic of watching two kids experience it all for the first time.
Tim with twin nephews Oliver and Lincoln. Supplied
From hamster wheel to holiday mode
Every trip has its ritual, that moment when things officially begin. For Davies, it’s the “flop and drop”.
“You walk into your hotel room, dump the bags, open the balcony door, soak in the view and then flop back on the bed,” he says. “That’s the moment. You just exhale and know you’ve arrived.”
But on a five-night trip with the boys, both eight and on their first proper getaway without mum and dad, flopping (for too long) wasn’t really an option. “My life feels like a hamster wheel,” he admits. “But I knew how excited they were. The Gold Coast was going to tick the boxes and make them really happy. So that made me happy.”
Hands in the air, not a care in the world
Warner Bros. Movie World was the first stop, naturally, and the Road Runner Rollercoaster quickly became an obsession. “We did it five or six times, conservatively,” Davies laughs.
No trip to the Gold Coast is complete without a visit to Movie World. Supplied
The rides also revealed the twins’ very different personalities.
“They’re little daredevils, but despite being identical twins, they’re uniquely different,” he says. “Lincoln was straight into it, lining up before we’d even got off. Oliver needed to know exactly where the track went and what happened around every corner.”
It didn’t take long before both boys were itching for the front carriage.
“They’d let other people go and wait for the next ride just to get that first cart. Then they’d sit there with their hands in the air like they just didn’t care. It was great.”
For Davies, the theme parks were really only part of the story. “It wasn’t so much about all the different things we did,” he says. “It was about how close we all got.”
The Gold Coast through fresh eyes is an adventure for the history books. Supplied
It smells like a holiday
The Gold Coast stirred something else in Davies too: nostalgia.
He grew up coming here – swimming at Burleigh, playing tennis at resort courts along the ‘Espy’, long afternoons… Watching Oliver and Lincoln charge across the burning sand brought it all back.
“That warm afternoon feeling, the cool breeze off the water, the sand absolutely stinking hot under your feet,” he says. “It just smells like a holiday.”
For the twins, though, this all felt brand new.
“The boys were gobsmacked when their sightseeing Aquaduck Gold Coast bus drove straight down a boat ramp and into the water,” recalls Davies. “They had no idea it turned into a boat. Their brains exploded!”
Both boys took a turn at the wheel, going home clutching little skipper’s certificates. Tim was pretty chuffed too, introducing the boys to new experiences and flavours. “They came back obsessed with Mexican food,” he says. “Now they’re always asking their parents for it.”
All smiles, without a worry in the world. Supplied
The quiet after the storm
By the end of the trip, Davies admits he was relieved to get two small boys home in one piece. But the silence that followed caught him off guard.
“The first moment without them, everything just felt really quiet,” he says. “I missed them.”
He made each boy a photo book from the trip. At every family gathering since, the Gold Coast stories dominate the conversation. “The boys swear they’ve been eating their fruit and veg and growing – they need the height to get the next level of rides at the theme parks. I think it’ll become one of those holidays they never forget. And I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”
Start planning that holiday feeling at Queensland.com
