Ashmore
Located to the west of Southport, Ashmore takes its name from a farming property once owned by the Hicks Family. The family farm near Benowa was called Ashmore after a localityor family property in England.
Ashmore Road connectedBenowa to the Nerang Road and was a local thoroughfare. By 1976, when a housing estate was developedin the area, the name was perpetuated when the estate was called Ashmore Village.
Ashmore is centrally located just west of Surfers Paradise
Ashmore boasts two shopping centres, Ashmore Shopping Plaza and Ashmore City Shopping Centre, as convenient locations for your weekly shopping or catching up with friends over coffee. For serious shoppers both Harbourtown and Australia Fair Shopping Centre are both only 10 minutes away while Pacific Fair and Robina Town Shopping Centres are just 15 minutes drive.
A number of schools are only a short distance away. These include Ashmore State School, Trinity Lutheran Primary and Secondary Schools and Aquinas College.
Benowa
Benowa is a suburb located to the West of Surfers Paradise. Early historian noted that Benowa was a corruption of an Aboriginal word ‘Boonow’ meaning red bloodwood.
The European use of the word dates back to the days when sugar cane grew on the banks of the Nerang River. Pioneer sugar planter, Rober Muir, used the name Benowa for the family’s sugar plantation established on the northern bank of the Nerang River in 1870.
Labrador
In 1878, sugar planter Robert Muir and investor, John Lennon purchased 139 acres of crown land north of Southport. The land overlooked the expanse of the Broadwaters and was a good spot for fishing.
Dawn Rix in her history of Labrador writes that Robert Muir is believed to have named the area after the Labrador peninsula, a large coastal fishery located in North Eastern Canada.
Carrara
An Aboriginal word ‘Karara’ meaning ‘long flat’.
Located on the southern bank of the Nerang River east of Nerang, the Carrara area was originally part of the Manchester Cotton Company’s cotton plantation established in the first part of the 1860’s.
The Manchester Cotton Block was bounded in the east by today’s Bermuda Street, Broadbeach Waters. On the left it included much of the land later known as Carrara.
Southport
The first white settler was Richard Gardiner in 1869 when Southport was known as Nerang Creek Heads. The township of Southport was surveyed and named Southport by 1875.
Named Southport on account of its position as the most southern possible port of the Queensland Colony and after the English seaside resort of the same name. Goo-een is the Aboriginal word for Southport.
An inner city suburb of the Gold Coast is the centre of the Gold Coast business district, with over 8000 registered businesses. It is also one of the Gold Coast’s oldest suburbs and boasts a superb range of established gardens and giant leafy trees.
Southport is home to two of the Gold Coast’s oldest public schools. TSS “The Southport School” an all boys school and St Hilda’s Girl School.
Molendinar
George Hope had a farm that he called ‘Molendinar Burn’ after a stream that once flowed through Glasgow, his place of birth. In 1891 a railway station was built on Hope’s land and named Molendinar station.
‘Jerringan’ is the aboriginal word for Molendinar meaning stringy bark tree.
Molendinar is a very affordable and popular suburb close to the CBD, major shopping centres, Gold Coast Hospital and many private schools. It is also home to the second largest daily newspaper in Australia – the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Arundel/Parkwood
There is great diversity within these suburbs from the rolling hills of golf courses, to The Coombabah Lake Conservation Park and the Ivan Gibbs Wetlands Reserve to the busy roads of Smith Street and Olsen Avenue.
These suburbs provide access points to the Pacific M1 Motorway which is busy with commuters travelling North. Only a few minutes to Griffith University which provides a great range of degree choices and sporting facilities.
Both neighbourhoods are well established and are well serviced by public transport, schools and shopping centres.