Don't Get Too Close!

The alarm blasts me awake at 8am and I lay there snoozing for a while. Then it kicks in, that we are in Australia. Sometimes it takes a while to register, especially when you are travelling from one place to another and getting yourself settled in. But after a good sleep the reality hits you. Breakfast was “served” between 8:30 and 9:30 every day so we headed down to see what delights might be heading our way. Cereal. Again. And no Coco-pops or anything good, just the bog standard value cornflakes and value Weetabix. With a distinct lack of mugs, or any crockery at all for that matter, we got some from reception and tucked in. It was great not having to worry about how much water we used washing them up or that we would shortly be having to empty the waste-water tank. Over a mug (small green plastic one for me) of coffee we got chatting to Kyle who seemed to know his way about the place, and he had a few suggestions of places for us to go and things to see. Although, he did pause before he answered, so we instantly knew that there wasn’t exactly on amazing thing that we should be looking. It did give us some options though and we then prepared ourselves for the days little jaunt.

We set off into the blistering heat (well, compared to what we had gotten used to in New Zealand) and made our way down to the Botanical Gardens just out of town. Well, we thought it was just out of town, but it turned out to be much further than we both expected and needed a couple of water breaks in order for us to get there in one piece. We wandered around the freshwater lake that could potentially have crocodiles in, but the only things we saw were ducks, fish and a weird-looking guy hanging around the public toilets. The next part of the trail was along a wooden boardwalk that took us into the actual botanical gardens, and through the rainforest, or we we assumed was a rainforest. There were quite a few things in there to keep us company, including some mound-builders (birds) and a few different species of spider. Not knowing what exactly they were we didn’t get too close, just in case. New Zealand had nothing to be afraid of, but in Australia there seemed to be any number of things out in the wild that could take a bite out of us.

A spider (species unknown)

We took in some “art” in the centre of the botanical gardens, and I put it in quotation marks as some of it was done by some school kids that were having their photos taken in the gallery, and also because some of it was pap. We had stopped for lunch in the café and as the place was much bigger than we thought we were already getting into late afternoon. By the time we had got back I was ready for a little mid-afternoon sleepy, so I crashed out for an hour as James tapped away in the hot-spot on the couch outside our room. As we had another meal voucher for that night we did our routine of hitting the offy first before dinner, but this time we just stuck to the regular red and white wine so as not to be too showy with more fizz. Dinner that time was chilli-con-carne but with such a meagre portion I was hungry for more. 20 minutes searching for somewhere to grab a little something extra took its toll and I very nearly caved and got a burger from the Maccy D’s by the sea front, but managed to find Pie Face first, a shop that sold pies with faces on them. Natch.

Pie Face

After my belly had been fully satiated we headed to The Crown for a schooner (a 15 oz size) of Pure Blonde. We supped away whilst watching the night folk go about their business. And soon enough it was time to head back to the hostel and crack open the wine (and I’m not surprised after only getting 15 oz in a glass!). We did so and tried our best to research the east coast of Australia and get a route planned in, but a dodgy Wi-Fi connection and a sudden bout of tiredness hit me for six, so I turned in at 11pm and tried to get a good solid 8 hours.