Wednesday, 10/10 Whaler's Way to Pt Lincoln Hilton

Thar she blows

      I brewed up some coffee and we drank it and ate cookies in the LC since the last of the previous evenings storm was just passing over. A word about Aussies and coffee. We've been using instant coffee on this trip, it's just easier, and makes a perfectly fine hot breakfast beverage. I call it coffee but I don't think 'coffee' when I drink it. The other day we were shopping at a Coles grocery store, very similar to Kroger in size and selection. The coffee section is 95% freeze dried or instant coffee. They did have a tiny selection of ground coffee, and an even smaller one of whole beans. But you could tell that the Australian coffee palate is a long way from Starbucks territory. In fact in Sydney I can't remember even seeing a Starbucks, although there are a few coffee houses.

      The sun came back out and we went back to Cape Carnot to see if the fierce winds from the night before had livened things up. And how! The rocks we'd jumped around exploring the evening before were now besieged by towering breakers, the spray occasionally rising above our heads, and us standing on 40 meter high cliffs. The winds were still blowing strong enough to lean against, but thankfully onshore, so we weren't in danger of being blown off cliff edge, although the sea spray did continually coat my glasses with a fine fog of salt.

Diana holding onto the sign to keep from being blown away

The Southern Ocean 

A Yank couple and an Aussie couple meet in a laundromat

     We made a few other stops to look at the headlands, then headed back to town. After doing a bit of shopping we checked back into the 'Hilton', the nice campground we'd stayed in four nights earlier. Did some laundry in the camp laundromat, (Diana kept hanging stuff on the line to dry, which it did pretty quickly in the strong wind, but then had to remove it when a squall line moved in. After running through the sequence a few times, she put the remaining clothes in a dryer).

     For dinner I fried up a seafood mix of squid, salmon, scallops, mussels, and shrimp, added some diced tomatoes and spices, and mixed it in with penne. It was gooood! While eating we talked to an entertaining young couple trying to throw together dinner before the mandatory nine o'clock kitchen closing, strictly enforced. She's a cute Irish girl who has been doing office cleaning in the western mines and making $1500 a week, and he's an Aussie electrician that looks more like a surfer who also worked in the mine setting up high voltage equipment and who made over $3000 a week. They had just quit a week earlier and were now on an trip around Oz, traveling in a tiny car. They had their tent set up in the shelter of a bush and somehow survived the gale force winds that night.

     We also met an Aussie couple about our age who chatted while we did laundry and then just as we were finishing dinner they invited us to stay in the camp cabin they had rented for the night. They were sure it would be too cold for us to stay in the LC, and while I know we would have been fine, who can refuse an offer of interesting conversation and cold beer.

     Shirley is a retired 60 year old registered nurse with an interest in exotic plant gardening. Jim is a 65 Viet Nam Vet who retired about 10 years ago and now delivers riding bulls on the PBR, or Professional 

Bull Riding circuit that his veteran buddy raises. He carries photos of the bulls, his whip, prod, and other objects necessary for his profession on his travels, and loves to talk about all the shenanigans he and his mates get into while on the job. A real bush cowboy! He has cut back a lot on his drinking on doctor's orders, but he talks about 'being on the grog' nearly constantly when on the road with his buddies. We had a great night swapping stories, well, the swapping was mostly one way, but then he had a lot more to talk about, and we stayed up until almost one.

     It was nice sleeping in beds, especially hearing the howling wind and rain outside all night.