Surfers Paradise Hit List #3: Our Favourite Watering Hole

The Q1 (left) and The Peninsula (2nd from right)

If there's one thing Surfers Paradise is known for, it's the nightlife. Pub crawl tours, nightclubs, pubs, gentleman's establishments... Surfers is choc full of them. Now, most of what we've encountered isn't really our style (maybe it would have been when we were 19?), so naturally, we were surprised to find our favourite nightlife spot right under our noses. It's not much of a walk from home, but it's a bit of an elevator journey -- 77 storeys up atop the world's third tallest residential building.

Embarassingly enough, we actually lived across the street from the Q1 (at the fairly tall Peninsula building) for about four months before finally getting fancied up and venturing to the Skypoint lounge at the top for a cocktail (thanks to couple of free passes in order to avoid the hefty cover charge). And boy, were we ever glad we didn't miss out on this one!

Espresso martini and mojito, yum

The Q1 has one of those super-fast elevators, with a somewhat creepy video ceiling that shows you exactly what barrelling up the elevator shaft looks like, as your ears pop and you wait for the recorded voice to tell you you've reached floor 77. And then you step out and it's all windows... floor-to-ceiling windows looking over the glittery lights up and down the Gold Coast. Ahhhh.

We've been to Skypoint twice now, and both times we couldn't help but doing the 360-degree wander around the building to admire the coast at night. Even our building, the Peninsula, at 50-odd floors, looked really small.

And then there's the drink list! It's not the most expansive menu, but there's more than a few yummy drinks on it: the bar's signature cocktail, the Mile-High martini was my favourite, with Alize Gold, passionfruit juice and mandarin vodka. Besides that, there's all the standard cocktails and plenty more delicious martinis (espresso!) and a very awesome mojito.

It seems not too many people know about Skypoint yet (or perhaps it's the cover charge keeping the riff-raff out), but there was always lots of lounge seating to swill our cocktails and enjoy the skyline from. There's something so fun about pretending to be fat cats and sipping martinis way up high in the sky. And then walking home... across the road.

The Mile High and a classic martini

The Peninsula & the Q1, best of friends.