Another week off

I had last week off work as well. I was intending to carry on clearing out the house and tidying up the garden. The weather was perfect for working in the garden, if a little on the cold side.

Alas. My knee and therefore my hip continued to be very unhappy following the boat trip a week before. I bought a new knee brace which has worked well. It's a double brace so wraps around both over and under the kneecap. That helped, but I didn't think it wise to annoy my knee even further by weeding and digging and planting. However, it is a lot happier now. The weather is also holding firm - for now. I have plans for my little vegetable garden and for the beds along the back fence.

I have until Thursday of next week, when the photographer is coming to start the advertising of the house.

The handyman came on Friday to assess a couple of little jobs. He's coming back at the beginning of next week to do them.

I ordered some curtains for the little bedroom and have now hung them up (which more or less hides one of the little jobs that needs doing).

I have continued turning out cupboards and wardrobes. 

I have done all the usual, day-to-day things.

And this week I head back to work.

But I've got to stop watching Selling Houses. It's very dispiriting when I look at the finished houses and then look round at mine and see all the things that need doing and which I possibly might do if I were planning to stay. Or not. Probably not 😂 

The outside spiders were busy while I was away. I had de-webbed many of the windows before I went away. They need doing again. Not quite as badly but even so. I don't mind spiders. They are useful creatures. But I wish they weren't quite as untidy.

The cats have been enjoying the late autumn sunshine

He gets combed almost every day
You wouldn't think so, looking at his curly belly

They enjoy the heated couch blanket as well

Right. It's almost 9:00. I am not dressed yet. There is a lot to do today. I had better get wriggling

Home Again

We had enough time yesterday morning to head back into the village to visit the bakery for breakfast supplies and coffee.

We packed, tidied up and got organised.

The shuttle van came at 10:15 on the dot and took us to the airport (which is small enough really to be called a fancified airstrip 😁)

And then we flew home, direct to Melbourne this time. 

We had a late lunch/early dinner at the airport and then Freyja and Simon took a taxi home and I waited for the airport shuttle bus back to Ballarat.

An almost two hour wait 😢

There is almost always a very long wait for the next shuttle, or I have to absolutely leg it to the bus station and catch the shuttle by the skin of my teeth. I do not much enjoy either of these things.

I wonder how much it costs to park in the value car parks at the airport. I wonder why I haven't thought to wonder this before.

It costs $12 a night in the value car parks. The shuttle costs $90 return, plus $30 for the taxi home. It would have been cheaper to park the car at the airport, even taking fuel into account. Not to mention that by the time I got onto the shuttle I would have been almost home had I been in the car. For longer trips away, the Skybus to the city and the train home would be cheaper, even including a taxi home from the station, and might even be quicker.

I might have to abandon the airport shuttle.

It has been something of a shock returning to Ballarat,  temperature-wise. Winter decided to pay a visit while we were away and the temperature plummeted. It was 2℃ when I got up this morning. It is a beautiful, sunny morning but it is still definitely on the chilly side. I was positively cold in bed last night. This morning I put the winter quilt on the bed.

Time to go home

Snuggled up next to me 
on the electric couch blanket

Monday - Last Full Day

We started the day quite gently, back at the little Wildlife Park for a keeper tour. We visited the pademelons, koalas, wallabies and dingoes. We also walked past and greeted the crocodile but she didn't do a talk about him.

We went back to the resort area and I went for a swim. It's the first time in a VERY long time since I have been in a pool just for a swim!

We went on little tours in our buggy of bits of the island we hadn't been to

We stopped for a glass of wine in a wine bar at the lookout over "Wildcat Island"

We saw wallabies, birds, a possum, a huntsman spider.

We went to Coca Chu for dinner. Dinner. At night. In a restaurant! They have a separate menu for vegetarians/vegans and the food is very delicious - although Freyja and Simon accidentally ordered pretty much the same thing three times. The crispy tofu they had for their entree was very much the same as the tofu platter they had for their main and both came with the green vegetables that were on the vegetable platter. The menu is really a sharing menu, but I was the only person who could eat my chicken and noodles. No sharing for me! (Although I did get to share some of the green vegetables and a bit of the crispy tofu)

Today we are going home, back to freeze, rainy, wintery Melbourne.

It is very tempting to stay here in our summer and beach clothes.

Sunday Boat Trip

We asked, when we booked the boat trip to Whitsunday Island, whether it was a hard slog for people who are not as agile or youthful as they once might have been. We knew the adventure included lookouts and a long, sandy beach but needed to know how steep the walk to the lookouts was and how difficult the terrain would be. We were assured it was boardwalks with a few stairs.

So we booked it.

It was a beautiful day for a half day boat trip, if a touch windy.  Freyja and Simon went for a walk in the morning. We pottered around a bit. We got to the boat with plenty of time in hand

 

We sat upstairs, and outside on the deck. It was quite choppy once we got out of the marina and bay onto the open sea. I don't suffer from sea sickness (or not usually) and didn't mind the choppiness, or even the spray. I didn't like the feeling of instability though. The boat was sturdy enough but at times I feared I might be flung from my bench (I wasn't)

What nobody had thought to mention was that, in order to get from the boat to the island, we all had to decamp to a dinghy. We were then taken to the shore where we had to step out of the dinghy into knee-deep water, slippery rocks underfoot, and wade a short distance to the beach. I don't mind getting wet and I was wearing beach appropriate clothes, but I do not enjoy clambering in and out of dinghies, nor wading on slippery rocks.

Nor do I enjoy climbing up uneven stone steps, of which there were many. I made it to the meeting point where the paths to the lookouts, beach and the landing beach intersected and decided to let Freyja and Simon carry on to the lookouts. I was not the only one who decided to do this. One elderly gentleman who had suffered from the choppy ocean and then the climb to the meeting point even lay down on one of the benches and had a recuperative sleep. 

There were more steps heading down to the swimming beach. Not a boardwalk in sight (although Freyja and Simon tell me that there were boardwalks once you got down to the beach). I cut my losses and very slowly, very carefully made my way back down to the landing beach. I can do Up quite easily, although I was worried about my knees and hips which were not enjoying the clambering. I find Down a lot more difficult, unless there are hand rails. 

There were no hand rails!

Eventually I made it down and sat on a rock in the sunshine and read my book until everyone returned

I was quite happy, sitting on my rock, reading my book and watching the sea but really, I could have done that on Hamilton Island at considerably less expense. 

And then, of course, I had to get back into the dinghy to get back to the boat!

We sat in the downstairs cabin on the way back with a table and everything. It was just as choppy but wasn't as precarious. Plus, there were cups of tea and nibbly things and even little donuts with custard filling.

I definitely wouldn't have done that particular boat trip had I known about the dinghy, or even all the steps. Freyja and Simon did much better - plus they got to the sandy beach and had a swim and saw stingrays and a baby shark. I saw a turtle from the boat.  I like looking at turtles, but not so much that I want to be flinging myself in and out of dinghies.

I might need to take up yoga again. I shouldn't be channeling my mother quite so much. Or not yet, at least

Exploring on Saturday

We had breakfast in the local cafe. My poached eggs and bacon were delicious and my iced latte was good and strong

Freyja and Simon had smashed avo
on sourdough

Then we went to the wildlife park. There were lots of koalas and macropods - although there are also lots of agile wallabies pottering around outside the wildlife park

I am not a koala OR a wallaby.
I am the Mighty McCulloch!

Then to Catseye beach

It is a very lovely beach

One of the good things about Hamilton Island is that there are two shuttle services which loop around the more populated part of the island. The green shuttle, which runs every 10 minutes and more or less services the hotels and the resorty bits, and the blue shuttles which loops around a larger part of the island and runs every 30 minutes. Both of these are free, and operate as hop on, hop off services. We rode on both of them. We did not hop off, except just past the airstrip where the driver had a five minute break, so we did too.

We had lunch at Sails, in the resort centre. My Vietnamese style noodle salad was delicious and my lychee and cranberry mocktail was delightful. So was the lunchtime view

Freyja and Simon went swimming, not in the sea but in the public pool.

We drove around the island in our golf buggy. 

This put me immediately in mind of
Wildcat Island (Swallows and Amazons),
transplanted from the Lake District to the tropics

We met another neighbour, guarding the entrance to our buggy garage

It's a yellow bellied tree snake
so not venomous
but we kept out of its way anyway
and did not run it over with our buggy

And we enjoyed delightful sunset views from our apartment

and from the marina

It was a good day - apart from when Simon discovered that his vital medication had cracked and was leaking. The local pharmacy had a replacement but it was the wrong brand and his script didn't cover it. But even that was resolved with a phone call to Melbourne and the almost immediate arrival of an e-script for the brand that the pharmacy did have. Technology is a wonderful thing!

Oasis Apartments, Hamilton Island

We arrived mid afternoon yesterday and were met by a shuttle bus which brought us to our apartment.

It's a nice apartment with lovely views

Afternoon view, on arrival

Morning view today

 We have two bedrooms, a lounge, dining, kitchen area and a lovely large, enclosed balcony

We have neighbours, both human and not:

We have a little village with shops, cafes, restaurants and an IGA (These are from yesterday; it's sunnier and less cloudy today)

And there are no private cars. Instead, people drive golf buggies. 

This is our buggy

  

I sit  here at the back

And this is our apartment (that's my bedroom window)

The forecast temperatures while we are here are in the low to mid 20s, with not much variation between night and day temperatures. Pretty perfect for exploring a small-ish tropical island

Week Off

It was Lindsey's birthday last Sunday. Ordinarily we would have gone out for lunch but it was also Mother's Day and the places we might have wanted to go to would have been booked out by the time we thought about it.

So she and Ian came to my place instead and I made roasted chicken leg quarters, with roast potatoes and lots of green vegetables.

On Monday I went to Melbourne to visit my podiatrist and went to La Manna supermarket on my way home. I had to be careful not to buy much. I don't have much freezer space and I am away this weekend.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I pottered about in the garden, started washing my poor, spider-webbed, dusty and much unloved windows. I started washing and brushing the patio. I swept and vacuumed the floors and carpets.

Hilary next door came around and agreed to feed the cats on the days that Lindsey can't  while I am away.

I came to Melbourne on the airport bus (and left my dinosaur cap on the bus 😥) and stayed in the Holiday Inn at the airport overnight. I don't remember staying in a Holiday Inn before and it's rather nice. Very comfortable and excellent wifi. Reminds me a bit of the British Premier Inns. I am about to leave on the hotel shuttle to meet Freyja and Simon at the airport. We are off to Hamilton Island for the weekend.

Room with a view:

All was going well yesterday until I left to catch the local bus to the station. I noticed that I had left a light on, went back inside to turn it off -  and my electronic lock flashed to say that it needed new batteries. I didn't have time to find the new batteries, get a screwdriver from the garage and change the batteries. So I wrote a note to Hilary and left her my garage fob. And then, of course, worried all the way to Melbourne that someone would walk up the driveway (unlikely), find the note (also unlikely) grab the fob from its hiding place and let themselves into my place and clear it out (extremely unlikely). In fact, as long as the cats didn't run away it wouldn't be a massive disaster if someone did break into my place and clear it out. It would make moving into a much smaller place much easier.

Lindsey already has a fob for the garage. I'm hoping she might change the batteries on Saturday.

🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫🛫

Later:

We have made it as far as Sydney. A bit of a wait now for the flight to the Whitsundays and Hamilton Island