The Thousands

Don’t ask how they got up there, but those sixteen full-sized palm trees on the roof of the Carlton Hotel are but the icing on the cake – the tassel on the metre maid’s bikini – of a new Gold Coast -esque oasis.

Now, instead of smoking in the shaft-like courtyard on level one, staring up at the sky, immune to the sun’s healing UV rays, you can develop a bronzed, surf-coast-real-estate agent hue on the roof.

Bogainvillia on the walls, a straw-thatched roof on the bar, tropical style garden-lighting, bamboo trim, pool-style see-through fencing, a ‘z’ in its name; Palmz has it over Queensland like Bjelke-Petersen had it over the communists. Don’t you worry about that.