Cavill Avenue

Cavill Avenue is one of the most prominent outdoor shopping precincts and accommodation providers on the Gold Coast and the best known street in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. Cavill Avenue has a broad range of varieties of exciting things to offer including shops, bars, nightclubs and fast food outlets meaning swarms of people travel to the mall each year.

History

It was named after Jim Cavill, a hotelier who gave birth to tourism there, acquired twenty-five acres of land in an area known as Elston - the place we know now as Surfers Paradise. The location of Cavill Avenue used to be a farm owned by James Beattie. Beattie built a shingle-roomed cottage, a barn for his produce and a jetty on the river bank. Around him, farmers were just barely surviving on their farms or selections, growing crops such as maize and sugar cane. A German immigrant called Johann Meyer purchased Beattie's land in 1877. He developed a short-lived sugar plantation and mill on the property. Meyer quickly found as many would in the future - there was money to be made in providing accommodation and services to visitors and travelers. He built a private ferry service over the Nerang River as well as the Main Beach Hotel near the river bank in 1887. He financed his new ventures by selling at auction in Brisbane, The Main Beach Estate. By 1888, a horse and coach service was operating from Southport three times a week. Johann Meyer faced financial ruin and after he died in 1901, the Main Beach Hotel licence lapsed. The town was without a hotel until Jim Cavill built the Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1925. As early as 1917, a Brisbane real estate company, Arthur Blackwood Ltd offered for sale the 'Surfers Paradise Estate'. The auction was unsuccessful, partly because access to the area was still difficult. 1925, at a relatively isolated spot near a long white surf beach, Jim Cavill opened his 16 bedroom hotel at the intersection of the South Coast Road and the old coach track which ran from Meyers Ferry to the beach. Around the hotel, the township of came to life. Villagers provided refreshments and facilities for campers and holiday-makers. To date Cavill Avenue is a top tourist destination.

Attractions

Apart from the shops and nightclubs there are also plenty of museums and adventures as well. Ripley's Believe It Or Not displays everything from the world's tallest man to a story-telling leprechaun. Take a tour through twelve galleries with hundreds of exhibits, stories, magic, mystery and illusions. Spacewalker is another one — take a journey across the universe through space-themed environments in a 90 minute inter-galactic out-of-this-world experience.

Check out Cavill Avenue by night, when the temperature is cooler but the street hots up. When you've had all the food and drink you can handle, a walk could be a good idea. Don't be in a hurry and enjoy the weird and wonderful night buskers. You could see acrobats or Elvis impersonators, living statues, singers and musicians and puppeteers.

Schoolies Week

In 2006, during the first ten days, depending on the night, between 10,000 and 26,000 schoolies headed for Cavill and the beach to celebrate. Police charged 128 schoolies and 361 toolies with 529 charges and issued tons of fines for alcohol and fake ID's.

One of the newspapers asked 100 schoolies if they had been offered drugs: 54 said yes and only 10 said they had used pot or ecstasy. There were reports of ice at schoolies. It was also the first year free condoms were widely available.

References

1. http://accommodation.schoolies.org.au/gold-coast-schoolies.htm

2. http://getaway.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=227420

3. http://www.goldcoastaustralia.com/pt-surfers-cavill.html

4. http://www.goldcoastcity.com.au/t_standard.aspx?pid=1076