SANTA Claus won’t be the only visitor to Australian shores on Christmas Eve.
The Queen’s Baton for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games arrives in Brisbane on the morning of Christmas Eve, December 24 – marking 100 days to the Opening Ceremony on April 4.
The Gold Coast-inspired, Brisbane-made baton has now traversed the globe on the longest most interactive baton relay in Games history.
From its start at Buckingham Palace in March, the baton has travelled more than 200,000 kilometres through 69 nations and territories.
It has been carried by hundreds of thousands of hands as it swung across the jungle in Africa, swam with stingrays in the Caribbean, posed for photos at the Taj Mahal and paraded with Mounties in Canada.
Now it’s Australia’s turn.
The baton will spend the first week in January visiting locations and events in Queensland including the Brisbane International tennis (January 6 and 7), Stradbroke Island (January 8), the Magic Millions draw on Surfers Paradise beach (January 9), Palm Island (January 10) and Springbrook National Park (Natural Bridge) and the Q1 observation deck on the Gold Coast (January 12).
The around-Australia relay proper starts in Canberra, coinciding with Australia Day celebrations on January 26. After circumnavigating the continent in a clockwise direction, the baton returns to Queensland through Horn Island in the Torres Strait on March 3.
It will then travel through the Outback, to the lush tropical north, onto the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef and then onto the beautiful Whitsundays. More than 1800 Queenslanders will carry it through 83 communities to its final destination - the Gold Coast’s Carrara Stadium.
There, on the evening of Wednesday, April 4, as part of the GC2018 Opening Ceremony, a message from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – written on spinifex paper and concealed inside the baton – will be read.
Everyone is being urged to line the streets when the baton passes through their city, town or region over the next 100 days and cheer on the baton bearers.
To see the street-by-street route of where the baton is heading across Australia, go to: https://www.gc2018.com/qbr#gc2018-qbr-parent-map.
A full list of baton bearer names and the communities in which they will carry the baton is available at:
For more information on holidays in Queensland and on the Gold Coast, and Games time accommodation options, go to: