Day 1 – The Grey Nomads
After our spa showers we cooked up some Jacket potatoes in the
camp kitchen. You don’t always get an oven in the kitchens so we always take
advantage. Glenn a bit too much, he decided to cook 4 medium potatoes for
himself but was sadly defeated at 3. Time for bed.
It was time to leave Tony’s place and after we said goodbye
to him and Deb we got our things together and locked up the house. We drove a short way up the road to the
nearest shops and stocked up on supplies before heading off to our next destination.
Our next stop was going to be Surfers Paradise beach and it was
only a drive of around an hour. Our
first impressions was how built up it was but we parked up and headed for a
look at the beach which as usual was stunning and went on for miles.
There didn’t appear to be any campsites along the beachfront
so we headed for Main beach a little further up. However the campsite was
pretty full and could only offer a small site where we couldn’t put up our
awning plus no slab. They wanted an extortionate rate so we decided not to
stay.
Back in Muriel we decided to phone around which was a good
call as the first few were also full but we finally found one a little further
out of town and closer to all of the amusement parks (which we didn’t intend to
visit).
We were escorted to our campsite by one of the maintenance staff
to an amazing double slabber! It had a concrete path leading to up to it and
meant you could fit both Muriel and the awning on it. What a beaut! Believe me,
this stuff gets us excited now. Flat surface so you’re not rolling out of bed,
concrete so you’re not treading crap into the van and close to the loo’s too
for Glenn’s midnight dash. Heaven!
We were running low on gas so showed the guy the bottle we
had and after he got up off the floor and recovered from laughing (it seems Muriel
has a tiny bottle) he said it would cost us the princely sum of $7.50 to refill it. It may be small but it’s
lasted us well. First time we’ve had to refill it since we set off from Cairns.
After setting up camp (reckon we’ve got it down to under 5
mins now) Glenn went on his usual inspection of the facilities. He came back
beaming, “you’ve got to come and look at this Shell”. The shower rooms were
like something you see in a Spa, even down to the chanting music and fragrant
incense! Fish tanks, supersized shower heads, a glass door on the shower so you
don’t soak the drying area and therefore the bottom of your trousers, or more importantly
drop your undies in the puddle. Bliss!
Next it was onto the camp kitchen, more fish tanks, brand spanking
new kit, fully equipped, BBQs, Ovens, hobs. It actually made you feel like
cooking! Dinky-di as the Ossie’s would say. Yep, we are turning into grey
nomads!
The rest of the afternoon was spent boiling eggs, water,
anything to use up the bit of gas we had before the bottle got re-filled ($7.50
or not, you want to get your monies worth!) and as we hadn’t eaten all day and
it was getting dark, we decided to cook up the now Glenn’s infamous B/F for our
dinner.
We were told that a ‘Sausage Sizzler’ was being held at 6pm
at one of the BBQ areas. Assuming this wasn’t slang for a gathering of a lot of
hot men, but instead a chance to gather with fellow nomads and eat free
sausages, we decided not to go…. There could be hope for us yet!.
Day 2
So last night on Glenn’s usual midnight pee dash he thought
he spotted a wombat, something that’s alluded us so far. A wombat is a fury 4 legged marsupial about 1m
in length, looks like a cross between a fat cat with no tail and a hamster. However
he had no photo evidence so I’m not counting it!
Today’s priorities was washing and availing ourselves of the
kitchen facilities. After the usual mad morning dash to get an available
washing machine, we headed to the luxury kitchens to cook up some meals to keep
in the fridge.
After a lot of poking, prodding and swearing we had to admit
defeat, we couldn’t operate the hob on the new hi-tech cooker. As it looked
obvious that Glenn wasn’t willing to go to reception to fess-up (instead
pretending to look busy with other stuff) I schlepped off to explain I was a
thick pommie and could someone come to our aid. I was starting to think the
word ‘Hob’ didn’t appear in the Ossie language as two receptionist stared at me
dumbly. Receptionist 1 “do you mean the BBQ?” Me “no, a hob, something you boil
potatoes on” (miming the action) “oh she
means the oven” the 2nd receptionist chimes in. This went on for a
couple of minutes and Just as I’m about to give up a 3rd receptionist
came along, understood what I was asking for and I was despatched back to the
Kitchen in golf cart with a maintenance man. It turns out the switch to turn on
the hob was an unlabelled button on the other side of the kitchen, go figure!
The weather wasn’t up to much so the rest of the day was
spent blogging, admin, chilling, before turning in to watch TV.
Day 3 - A holiday from the holiday
Today the sun came out and as neither of us fancied packing
up and schlepping to the beach, we headed for the pool area instead. Laughing maintenance
bloke mentioned that the pool was pretty special and it was. Little shaded
booth areas where you had a double bed, tables and chairs. There was a little café
that opened at odd hours, a Jacuzzi, heated pool a water slide AND we had the
whole place to ourselves.
It wasn’t long until we were taking turns to go down the
slide and try to catch action shots on the crappy slow shutter camera we have. Unfortunately
some kids came along eventually so we reluctantly gave way and headed off to
the more adult friendly Jacuzzi.
The day was spent blogging, reading, and chilling. Only
broken by Glenn’s exploration to find us a snack and being joined by a couple
of lizards. We really enjoyed the day “a holiday from the holiday” as Glenn put
it. If you’ve travelled extensively, you will get what we mean. We decided to
stay another night!
Leaving the pool we headed to a local shop to pick up
supplies for our extended stay. We then headed back to camp for showers, food
and a chilled out evening.
Day 4 – Deuce
So today was pretty much a rinse and repeat of the previous
day where we swam, read, blogged and generally chilled out. This time however I headed back to Muriel and
packed up a picnic which we shared by the pool together with half a bottle of
chilled Rose which was disguised in our trusty canister. That Nepal purchase
was truly a best buy!
It started to get chilly around 3 so we decided that it was
time to test our lungs and see how truly unfit we had become after so many
months on the road. Time for tennis.
I got a little nervous when the receptionist gave us the
racquets and logged the time we had taken them out. Crikey, we will be back in
20 mins, this could be embarrassing! We took a very slow walk to the courts (to
kill time) and agreed the rules. Basically, no rules other than trying to keep
the rally going.
Tough rule! After checking whether I had a hole in my racquet,
hitting 3 balls over the court enclosure (Shel not Glenn) we finally got a few
rallys going. I must say, towards the end I was pretty impressed with my
overhead serve and Glenn pulled off a few neat dive returns. We lasted 55
minutes which I think is pretty respectable under the circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment