Day 1 - I reached gold coast at about 8am, went straight to the convenience store in the airport to buy a $30 sim card. There are several plans that you can actually read up, just a reminder it is quite troublesome to activate the sim card. Good news is that without activation, by just connecting to the network (e.g Optus Network) I was able to make 1800-xxxxxx calls.
This was extremely useful because I rented my vehicle ( Hyundai I20 ) from Apex, to be honest they had very good customer service. The only down side is that Apex is located outside the airport unlike Hertz, Budget or Thrifty. BUT !!! do not worry, their driver will only take approximately 5mins to reach the airport and you can call them by using the unactivated sim card apparently. ( 1800-xxxxxxx ) --> toll free line i guess
I resided at Hotel Grand Chancellor, the reason for the choice of hotel is it cost approximately $110aud a night, which also includes breakfast and lastly because I was travelling in 2pax and it wouldn't be cost efficient if I chose an apartment. Breakfast was important as meals could cost up to easily 10aud/pax. Taking into account of daily room services such as making up of room and breakfast we decided to go for Hotel.
On the first day I went up to Mount Tamborine, alot of different trekking spots and really nice environment. All I can recommend is to go through the small little shops over there and try to notice for Fudge Shop, try their home-made fudge, its considered cheap if let's say you wanna buy it in singapore from like Candy Empire.
I will continue updating on Day 2,3,4 when I have the time. Sorry guys