Thursday, November 29, 2012

Monday, November 26 Crystal Creek to Townsville - Kevin is 60!


That's a big arachnid!

      I awoke with trembling joy at making it to 60! What a glorious day, getting to start my seventh decade in such idyllic surrounds, the birds chirping, a cool breeze blowing through my flowing hair, my beautiful wife asleep next to me ... wait a minute... It wasn't the sound of birds, but rather mosquitoes buzzing, and I haven't had flowing hair for about 30 years. In fact, I pretty much forgot it was my birthday until Diana gave me a kiss upon awakening, but at least the beautiful wife part was true. Oh well, the day had nowhere to go but up.
     With mozzies abounding we did a quick collapse of the tent so we could make a hasty retreat. But first, I had bathroom duties. As I am wont to do, I checked the available stalls to see which was cleanest. The toilet block at the campground had only two choices, and when I looked in the first in the dim morning light, I was startled to see what I thought at first to be a small bird on the wall. But I soon realized I was looking at the biggest non-tarantula spider I'd ever seen. I went back to the tent to tell Diana and grab the camera, and we hurried back to the bathroom. (I can't imagine what our fellow campers would have though if they saw an older couple heading into the men's room with a camera, but I'm pretty sure they were all still asleep.)

Happy birthday, mate

Normally I'd have a finger posed nearby to get a sense of scale
     Not to be outdone, Diana summoned me into her side of the 'amenities' to show me her find (Oh great, now they're going into the women's room with the camera!).

I know, Diana wasn't afraid to point at her bug, but
I'm pretty sure there aren't any poisonous moths in Oz
     Wow, a giant spider and a big moth with eyes on its back, now we're talking! My birthday was starting to look up.

      We drove to Townsville, capital of Northern Queensland, and had breadfast at the Cape Pallarenda Shore. The biggest treat was Skyping with the kids. 

Doesn't he realize we haven't had our T'Day turkey yet?
    Then we looked around the old quarantine center where new arrivals to Australia would wait if their boat had been infected with some noxious disease. After that, I got to see some reinforced concrete gun emplacements from the WWII era when the fear of Japanese invasion was a real and definite possibility, at least until the great naval battle of the Coral Sea began to turn the tide of the war in the Pacific.



A roof over our heads

     We drove into Townsville looking for a place to stay. After a couple months of heat and bugs and wind and no reliable internet, we, or I should say I, was ready to have an air conditioned roof over my head for a couple nights. And since it was my birthday, I had hopes that my wish would come true. (I exaggerate, for the most part our little tent has been very comfortable).  Of course that meant checking out places for the best combination of price and comfort.
     I got very excited when we went into the old Great Northern Hotel, [Diana: at my insistence I should add], a classic veranda lined pub with rooms on the second floor. 
Would this be our home in Townsville?
    We climbed the grand staircase up to the high ceilinged second floor where the hotel rooms were, and found the room that matched the key the bar maid had given. I was elated, this was exactly the kind of place I had pictured us staying since before our arrival in Oz.  I could see us sitting out on the balcony in front of our room, drinking cocktails and watching people stroll by.
     But upon opening the door, I smelled old cigarette smoke, and even if the walls had been brightly painted instead of a dingy gray, and the woodwork shiny and not grimy, and the linens antiseptically clean, which probably hadn't been true in decades, I knew Diana would never go for it. Nothing turns her off more than the smell of butt smoke in a hotel room.  [Diana: Not to mention the gaping 'closet' that was more like something on a factory line. And forget the thought of a dresser or a lamp.] Many of these old pub/hotels serve as long term residences for itinerant workers who come back from their jobs and drink and play pokie (electronic poker) in the pub downstairs until closing.   No, we wouldn't be staying here, especially at the $90 a night price, when we already had tabs on a nice guest house with room rates $20 less. My heart sunk a little, and I knew that even trying to milk my birthday privileges wouldn't work.

Kevin in his birthday suit at the Coral Lodge

     So we walked back to one of the guest houses that we had visited earlier. When we were there the first time a sign said “Be Back at 6”. Well, it was 6:30 and Be was not Back. Diana found a business card and rang the manager up. He was very apologetic and offered to give us the $85 one bedroom apartment for $65, and that he could be there in 20 minutes to show us the place. We waited, and soon he arrived. The apartment had a nice kitchen, separate bedroom, and big bath with a separate toilet chamber. It was spotlessly clean and overlooked palm trees in the back yard. Wow, pretty nice, Diana. Probably not as cool as the Great Northern Hotel, but I can see the attraction. Needless to say, we took the place, I cranked up the AC and took a shower while Diana went to the nearby Wooly's to get our dinner. I put on my new bathing suit Diana bought me earlier at a Big W, and felt pretty spiffy for sixty.

I guess this will have to do
Me in my new swimming trunks.  See the kangaroos?
 Don't ask me why they're upside down.
     Since we had missed Thanksgiving dinner, Diana bought a hot roasted chicken with stuffing, cranberry sauce, bake-at-home rolls at the nearby Wooly's, and while she was gone I cooked the squash, which the Aussies call a pumpkin, that she had picked up a few days ago at a roadside stand. With our standard red wine and candles, it was a wonderful T'Day/B'Day dinner.




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