Why Australia's Gold Coast Is Nothing Like You Imagine

0:00 The Gold Coast behind the postcard 1:31 The river of sand 4:34 Cyclones and engineered beaches 6:44 Swamps turned into canal estates 8:35 How Gold Coast got its name 11:22 The ghost of the Tweed Volcano 14:21 The border, water and whales 16:18 A city arguing with geography The Gold Coast postcard is built on a moving river of sand — and that is only the beginning. I trace how longshore drift, the Gold Coast Seaway and sand-pumping projects keep the beaches in place, then look at how swamps and dairy paddocks became canal estates, including Florida Gardens and the Isle of Capri. I also explain how the names Surfer's Paradise and Gold Coast began. From Q1's beach shadows to the basalt headlands of the Tweed Volcano, I connect the city's towers, rainforests, Indigenous stories, border quirks, desalination plant and migrating humpback whales. The result is a very different Gold Coast from the one shown on the postcard.