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.)
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| Happy birthday, mate |
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| 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!).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| I guess this will have to do |
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| 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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