Bonza day at beach easy as pie
IT’S often said that there is nothing more Aussie than a meat pie.
And apparently more Bosnian.
For Bosnian-Australians living on the Gold Coast, there was no better way to celebrate Australia Day yesterday than to join the festivities on Currumbin Beach and enjoy a meat pie – of the Bosnian variety.
“We’ve been swimming, eating pineapples and strawberries and Borek, a traditional Bosnian meat pie,” said Jakub Malic, who was celebrating with Seni Hankic and Mina Bosnic.
“We were born here but our parents came here as refugees in 1993, so we celebrate Australia Day with the Bosnian version of a pie.
“Meat, potatoes and pastry, it’s really good.
“We love Australia, but the humidity has been crazy today.”
Brisbane’s Beck Walsh and fiance Jordan Carter from the UK took the opportunity to show English and Scottish friends what a true Australia Day is all about – beach, barbecue and beers.
“We got here at 8am and got a really good park,” said Ms Walsh.
“We’ve been hanging out with the Scots and the Brits and I am the only Aussie here, but we’re showing them how it’s done.
“We’ve got the barbecue nothing going, we’ve made a few friends with people from the other tents, the weather is amazing, we’re just having a really good day.”
Mr Walsh said he was looking forward to becoming an “Aussie”.
“We’ve got a few beers, the water is really lovely, it’s great,” he said.
Patrick Thew and Maddison Small from Chevron Island said while they were enjoying their day, they battled to find a park at the popular Currumbin spot.
“It was a bit of a nightmare trying to get a park, everyone seems to want to be at the beach today,” said Ms Small.
“It’s been a great day, just having a few drinks, having a swim,” Mr Thew said.
“We’re going to a barbecue later on.”
A police spokesman said police were happy with the behaviour of revellers partying on the beach and in the parks.
“It has been calm and uneventful on the Coast,” he said.
Although revellers were well behaved, lifesavers had a busy day with four rescues across the Coast and up to 30 blue bottle stings.
At Southport, two teenage boys were rescued after swimming outside the flags.
A similar case occurred at Nobby’s Beach where Surf Lifesavers saved a 27-year-old female who was also swimming outside the flags.
Surf Lifesaving officer Scott Burgess said blue bottle stings were the biggest issue that faced swimmers.
“We’ve had a few people swimming outside the flags but the majority of our help was for blue bottle stings, we’ve had a lot of first aid for that,” he said.