I relegated myself to the lounge at 04.30 this morning due to Maice’s bouts of loud shouting. I’ve no idea what she was dreaming about and she can’t remember anything other than she knew she’d been dreaming. Maybe she was dreaming of falling into crocodile infested waters or maybe it was the combination of wine and gin.....we’ll never know!
We had a plan today, we’re getting good at this; get up, breakfast, book some tours, coffee, walk round town, post office, harbour, beach, do laundry, ask about room cleaning as ours hadn’t been cleaned yet, ring John’s cousin in Cairns!
We got up around 7am, pottered around, had breakfast ‘in-fresco’ but ‘al-fresco’ out on the balcony then dithered about, consuming hundreds of steps looking for our glasses, dibbers (I’ve got Maice hooked on using these for her phone and iPad), chargers, you name it, we couldn’t find it and then we realised it was 10am. Half the morning had gone already so we sorted ourselves out and made it to reception. Apparently our room is only serviced once a week which means we have to empty the bins, do the beds, sweep the floor etc. etc! Next stop, book some excursions at the travel shop. Just as we were making our way to the counter to enquire, the most obnoxious guy you could imagine beat us to it and honestly the things he was asking the assistant, I’m surprised she didn’t punch him in the face! He was only in his twenties too. When it was our turn, we commiserated with her, both knowing what it’s like to be on the receiving end of some tourists and told her what we wanted to do. So, tomorrow, Wednesday, we’re going on the Skyrail up to Kuranda and taking the scenic railway back down, then on Friday we’re going on a boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. Next up was a well deserved coffee to wake us up and then we thought we’d go for a walk down to the harbour. What a lovely place it is along here with its wonderful array of cafes, bars and restaurants. It’s obviously the place to be, although today there wasn’t a soul around, it was very quiet. We then decided to wander down to the yacht club which was a fair distance away and off we walked, in the midday sun. Do we ever learn? Honestly, it was baking hot, around 35 degrees and we were getting really hot and sweaty only to find when we got there it was closed!
We traipsed back, eating up at least 5,000 steps in the process and headed off to do some shopping. We were after a couple of stubbies or huggers, sound like nappies don’t they but in fact they’re bottle or can coolers. In the shop it took us ages to decide on colour and design but finally we made a decision and we set off to the supermarket to buy some insect repellent. Maice seemed to be collecting mosquito bites about her personage, we needed something to stop her becoming a human dot to dot and since the Skin so Soft wasn’t working drastic action had to be taken. Repellant purchased it was off to the Post Office to buy stamps for my mother’s postcards. I’m still reeling from the shock at how much it cost for eight stamps, $24 dollars! So, the £20 I won at the weekend on the Postcode Lottery will now pay for those. You see you win in one hand and it’s taken away in the other!
Stamps purchased, it was back to the apartment to do our ‘housework’ and a bit of laundry We’d done a reccie of the laundry room where there are three washing machines and three tumble driers and it’s all free, all we have to do is pay $2 for the soap powder. We put our washing in and retired to the pool where we swam and sunbathed through the washing cycle. I don’t know what it is with Maice but she went to fetch her iPad from the room and when she came back she completely missed the step into the pool area entirely. The only other time I’ve seen such acrobatics was when she almost fell in the pool yesterday. It was like watching a slow motion picture. She fell off the step, lurched forward, hands outstretched as she clung valiantly to her iPad and somehow righted herself. She was so lucky to a) not fall over completely and break a bone and b) saved the life of her iPad. They say it comes in threes so we’re wondering what the next ‘near miss’ is going to be!
Washing and ironing done, yes you heard correctly, we iron dried our linen clothes and then attempted to put away the ironing board. Neither of us iron at home and maice doesn’t even own an ironing board so we were a bit flummoxed by the mechanics of trying to put it down. We crawled underneath it, we had it on its side, it’s back, we even looked in the drawers for an instruction manual but none was forthcoming. Finally, after fiddling with ever knob and lever there was we eventually put it down. Hey, hi-five to us!
I rang John’s cousin Paul to see if he and his wife Jen wanted to meet up for coffee, drinks, lunch or whatever suited. We’ve never met them before but our mission was to deliver a special package of Dorset Knobs to them, a little gift from John. The window of opportunity to meet up with them is quite slim what with us being on two trips and them off to their ranch at the weekend. We hope we do meet up with them as we’d like to get rid of these Knobs once and for all!
Our Day 7 Yoga with Adrienne came next and my, was it a tough challenge. Our poor stomach muscles have had to work extremely hard today and the pain they endured, particularly in doing the side-plank was indescribable. Gruelling, I suppose is the word we’d use to describe it. A quick shower and then we were out for supper. We didn’t know where we were going to eat but a few doors down from our apartment was a Mexican restaurant so we went in there and enjoyed a really nice meal of taco’s and fajitas, washed down with a glass of chilled white wine. Delicious.
And that was it, our day in Port Douglas was done. We got back to the apartment at 7.45pm!!!! Us ‘night owls’ certainly know how to live it up!
We’ve an early start tomorrow so on that note....
G’night all
M&A xx