Simple Pleasures

It was lovely waking up and being able to see the ocean from my bed. By 7am there were already a few people out surfing. This wasn't enough to prise me out of bed however, but watching them was a great accompaniment to my morning cup of tea. Once we were showered and dressed we opened the bi-fold doors across the front of our apartment making the outside very much part of our room.

I had a simple breakfast of toast, while Nigel poached a couple of eggs. We did some more washing and tidied things up a bit before getting ready to go out. We had decided to go on another rain forest walk, this time at a place called Sea Acres Rainforest Centre, only a short drive south along the coast road. We were hoping to go on a guided walk but the next one wasn't taking place for another couple of hours so armed with an information sheet we settled for a self guided walk instead. The path was about one and a half kilometres in length, all on raised boardwalks, with some interesting carved wooden sculptures part way round. We wanted to maximise our chances of seeing some wildlife so we walked really slowly and quietly.

There were lots of small signs explaining about the vegetation but obviously the fauna was a little less predictable. There was a warning at the start of the walk about jumping ants on the handrails, and we had only just set off when we saw some ants devouring a small worm.

One of the easiest creatures to spot creatures was the bush turkey. The males scratch about in the undergrowth pulling vegetation into a large pile, onto which the females lay their eggs. True to form the first one we saw was frantically clawing at the ground in a rather random and uncoordinated way, dodging and darting about in the undergrowth making it quite difficult to photograph.

The light levels were quite low as well which also made photography problematic without a tripod. As we were walking round when we saw quite a large lizard, approximately 18 inches in length, sitting basking in the undergrowth.

We both took some photographs of it and noticed later when looking at the pictures that one of its front legs was badly damaged, however apart from that it looked quite healthy. We also saw another (or was it the same one) bush turkey, some smaller lizards and a lot of small birds and butterflies. There were lots of unusual trees and plants to look at and It was also really interesting listening to the rainforest noises, predominantly of birds including the occasional kookaburra.

Once we had finished exploring we went to the cafe and had some lunch. We sat outside although it was a little chilly in the shade of the tree canopy. It also wasn't as peaceful as we expected, partly because a woman sitting at a nearby table insisted on using her mobile phone on hands free. It's bad enough listening to one half of someone's conversation, but even more irritating having to listen to to both parties. Fortunately she lowered her voice when she started talking about her bowel/ bladder problems! More amusingly we were joined on the terrace at one point by a bush turkey whose aim was to clear any left overs of people's plates. One of the waitresses told us that they have given him the name Kevin (she didn't explain why). It amused me that we had struggled to photograph bush turkey's in the forest and then one wanders into the cafe in full view of everyone.

Once we had finished eating we went to get some food shopping at Woolworths after our pretty fruitless shop yesterday. We bought enough food for dinner today and food for tomorrow. It was so much nicer shopping in a decent supermarket and I was looking forward to our meal of risotto with jumbo prawns. We dropped the food off at our apartment and then went out for a walk along the coastal footpath past Town Beach, Flagstaff Beach and onto Oxley Beach.

The light was starting to fade by this time so we made our way back, stopping for quite a while back on Town Beach to enjoy the sun going down and to take some photographs. It was also an opportunity to have a paddle, and I noted that the water is definitely getting warmer as we get further north.

Back at the apartment were ready for a cup of tea and we chilled out for a while before I cooked dinner. Our stay here has certainly given me a taste for seaside apartment living, particularly with the sun, sand and surf of Australia.