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| Our Apartment |
Woke up this morning around 5am – and it was already light. Sure is different from Boise. Anyway, went out to the deck where the weather was perfect, and then down to the pool area to login to the internet. While we were there, we spent a bit of time chatting with our host – a transplanted Kiwi… nice guy. We then decided to drive the car into town, which was only about a ¼ mile away, since the walk back up the hill would be pretty taxing in this weather. In town, we walked through Airlie Beach’s main drag, which was very touristy as expected. They do have a very nice beachfront lagoon (somewhat similar to Brisbane’s river side “beaches”) which provide swimming areas free of “stingers” (jellyfish) for the locals and tourists.
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| One of the man-made Beach Lagoons |
A funny Australian side note – today was the Melbourne Cup – a huge horse race in Australia where, as they say, it’s the “race that stops a country”. Actually, the Parliament postponed a “question time” so they could all take in the race. Also caught a little bit of the Chargers Monday Night Football fiasco, live on Tuesday morning at 10:30am, at a local youth hostel/backpacker restaurant. Watched the first quarter there, and back at our apartment “watched” it on the internet… pretty sad and sloppy.
Anyway, Joanie and I decided to participate as well (when in Rome) so we placed 4 different bets, and one of our bets won! The horse’s name was Dunaden – similar to a town we were going to visit in New Zealand (Dunedin). Anyway, our four bets cost us $20 total, and won $43 – a $23 profit! Yee haw!
We then went back to the house and hung out – spent some good deck time; playing games, surfing the web, reading. Nice and easy – feels like a vacation today instead of an adventure – and for today, that’s a good thing. (Woah! That was so funny. I’m sitting here on our deck writing this blog and all of a sudden a huge parrot flew up from below and attempted to land about 2 feet away from me on our balcony. It of course startled me, then I in turn startled her, so unfortunately she flew away immediately. It was funny though – almost had a nice little visit.)
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| Backpacker Restaurant & Bar |
Went back into town for dinner, and it turned out to be pretty yucky. Although I did learn a lesson tonight – never eat at a Mexican restaurant that isn’t on an American continent. Lousy margarita, lousy Fajitas, lousy salsa (if you can call it that – which you can’t) and no free chips. Nice view though… J
Tomorrow our adventures continue with a boat trip to visit the beautiful Whitsunday Islands. Can’t wait!
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| Kookaburra Visitor at the Backpacker Bar |
