Tag: beach

Day 15: Après moi…

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Slept in. Awoke to warm breezes and strange bird sounds. Ate breakfast here. No big deal.

Went for a bit of a hike down to the second beach, much rockier and wilder than the other. We climbed around the rocks, and saw tidal pools with crabs and cuttlefish scurrying about. We’d hoped to kayak around a bit that morning but the wind was too high.

Windy or not, we were still getting pretty damned warm and sweaty. By the time we walked back up the hill to the main lodge we knew we needed a dip to cool off, so into the ocean we went.

After a bit of relaxation back at the room, we thought…what the heck, another swim? Why not, right? This time we went to the pool just up the hill, sprawled out and read for a bit, and then had a swim. Not a bad venue either.

After drying off from that excursion we had a leisurely lunch of meats, fruits and cheeses on the front deck of our cabin. The weather was perfect…sunny and warm, but with shade and a cool breeze to keep things bearable.

Still, it did get quite warm by the afternoon so we turned to the water once more, this time opting for a smaller, shadier pool near the beach. It was deserted, and incredibly refreshing.

The rest of our afternoon was spent sitting on our balcony, cleaning sand from our feet, drinking wine, enjoying the views, getting ready for dinner and listening to bush turkeys scratch around in the scrub below. That evening the plan was to take the shuttle into Port Douglas for dinner.

We walked around the town, which took about…oh, ten minutes. Not an enormous place, Port Douglas. We sat at Iron Bar and had a few schooners, listening to a great chattering flock of birds shriek from the trees at the oncoming night. We walked down Wharf Street and chose a spot on an empty patio. Just one glass of wine later the restaurant we were in, and practically the entire row of restaurants on the street, was overflowing.

For our part, we had dinner at Harrison’s, one of the nicer places on the strip. Our server (who was from Montreal!) was a little slow off the mark — we guessed that she was new — but the meal was wonderful. It accelerated a little toward the end as we had to dash to catch our shuttle back to Thala, though.

By this time the wind was really starting to pick up — it had blown several coconuts off the trees and on to the roof over us during dinner — and spoiled our plans for one last swim when we got back to the lodge. Whatever, though…there was no way around the fact that we’d just had a vacation day for the ages.

Day 14: bienvenue a la jungle

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We got up early, but we had a very good reason: we were flying to Cairns to stay at Thala Beach Lodge. We’d decided to build some downtime into our schedule, and booked in at this quiet lodge near Port Douglas.

It was quite unlike the other very beach-y, very tourist-y resorts we passed on the way up. In fact, someone in our shuttle (bound for one of those beach-y, tourist-y places) sniffed, “It’s a bit jungly, innit?” as we pulled up.

We had lunch in the restaurant and a drink in the bar while we waited for our cabin to be prepped. This, by the way, is the view from the bar:

By the time we got to our cabin I was pretty much dying from the heat. It was practically tropical here, and I was still dressed in the jeans and shirt I put on in Sydney that morning. Once we got into some cooler clothes we headed down to the beach. Our cabin was a few minutes’ walk up a hill from the beach, but what it lacked in sandy nearness it made up in convenience of getting to the main lodge. Not to mention the view:

Not that the beach wasn’t worth the walk. We got to see lots of lizards on the way down. We also saw lots of animals on the beach: tiny molluscs of some kind that would wash in on the surf and immediately bury themselves in the sand. We could see it happening as we walked up and down the beach (during which time Nellie suffered another soaker). What a beach it was too…just incredible.

We walked back up to the cabin; I stayed in and cooled down while Nellie checked out the pool. I wasn’t good looking enough to hang out at that pool. It’s where all the resort’s hot people were hanging out. We did return to the sea for a quick swim at sundown which, it turns out, might not be the best time to swim there given the potential for sharks and saltwater crocodiles. But man, if you could have seen that sunset, you would have swum out there too.

After the dip we watched a bit of the Rugby World Cup semifinal and went for dinner. Dinner was quite good, even if the starter showed up at the same time as the mains for some reason. No matter; the food was good, the wine was good, the setting was extraordinary and the walk home barely stretched our legs.

Now this was vacation.

Day 8: Transit

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This day wouldn’t really amount to much. Between the three hours’ drive back to Perth (during which I slept, mostly, missing the beach we stopped at on the way), a five hour flight to Sydney and a three hour time difference, the day was all but gone once the transportation ended. A quick batch of pasta and we were all off to bed.

Day 2: In which the upside-down eating and drinking continues unabated

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Our first full day in Sydney. We woke up early, but slept very well overall, and had lots of energy to attach the day. My brother had taken the day off work to show us around and get us situated.

First stop was the Bourke Street Bakery, one of a few in and around Sydney. It’s this amazing bakery nearby where we got croissants and sourdough and probably the best mocha I’ve ever tasted. We took a loaf of fig sourdough home with us for dinner that night. If it were within walking distance we’d have gone back every morning.

After stuffing ourselves we (and by “we” I mean my brother, as any attempt by me to drive on the left side of the road would result in all of us dying) drove east through Newtown and Surry Hills and Paddington, down through Centennial Park (behold: black swans!) and Randwick and into Coogee. Coogee’s was the first of three eastern beaches we saw, and was decidedly not-busy, since it was a cool, cloudy Tuesday. Nellie opted to stick her feet in the surf (Tasman Sea: check) before we jetted off for more.

Next was the less-crowded, but much prettier, Bronte beach (seen above). We got some good pictures there, far better than what we got at over-crowded and touristy Bondi. From there we drove up to Watsons Bay and walked around the park at South Head, all the while enjoying the great views of the north and middle heads, the harbour and the city.

We decided that was enough driving and jumped in the car to head home. We stopped at The Local Taphouse to sample their beer, but it didn’t open until 4. We drove home, defeated, stopping on the way to fill up at some place in Newtown. Boo. We parked the car and watched as a bird promptly (and, some say, purposefully) shat on it.

My brother was kind enough to take us downtown on a train to show us the ropes, so we made our way down to Circular Quay. We walked directly over to the Opera Bar, a perfect venue from which to enjoy a beer whilst taking in views of the Quay, the Harbour Bridge, the harbour itself, and of course the Opera House.

From there we walked up through the Rocks to a pub that somehow escaped my beer-hunting gaze: Harts Pub. It was a fantastic spot, replete with tasty beer, and we sat and drank and laughed our asses off about who-knows-what until it was time to head home for dinner. Dinner, by the way, was a tasty curry whipped up by the brother, which was followed immediately by a great big crash into bed.