Wonderful World (Chapter Eleven: Deception Bay)

This was Adam in the surf on our first day at the beach north of Brisbane.  When we got to Day 6 and Adam asked what did I want to do, I said,  I don't know, what do you want to do?  Going back to the beach North of Brisbane should have immediately jumped to mind, but we had to get lost first.  Sure we had lots more experience driving and navagating, but I was still pretty crappy at it.  Let's start at the beginning.

On Day 5, I couldn't stay awake past 8:30 p.m. (again) and so, I was up by 4 a.m. on Day 6 (again).  By now I was very familar with my tv options and I decided to watch some news.  That early in the morning, it was on a loop, but I just kept changing channels (there were four news channels) so I mixed it up some.  And then of course I had to see Jessica kill someone off at 6.  It seems like the killer always catches her alone when she explains the evidence that will convict them--why don't they just shoot her when they have the chance.  But I digress.

Anyway, we had talked about different things to do, but we hadn't made any definite plans.  So first things first, we drove to McDonald's so I could check my e-mail.  I had logging in down to a science and I didn't even have to yell at Adam because it was taking too long (I know, like it is his fault or something just because he moved to Australia and MY hotel doesn't have wireless, but I digress).  There was a botanical gardens downtown that we hadn't been to, so we were going to start our day there.  Except that when I tried to navagate us there from McDonald's it was one of those--you can't get there from here kind of deals.  I mean we went at it from about six different routes and none of them worked until finally we were on something heading north and Adam said, why don't we just go to Deception Bay up at Sunshine Coast--YES, I said, that sounds excellant.

I had read a book about Australia before I went that talked about how long it took explorers to find Australia.  I seemed to remember that Deception Bay may have been one of the first landing spots.  Anyway, the signs to Deception Bay were easy to follow and we didn't really care where we ended up.  So of course we did get lost, but at least we just didn't care very much that we were sort of lost.  We were driving up one very residential street in Nudgee and there in the middle of the block was a little neighborhood market.  It's time for a diet coke.  Then we parked and looked at the ocean for a while and then we continued north to Deception Bay.  There was a nice little park (I wanted a restroom, so I walked and walked and walked toward a building that looked like a public restroom, but when I got to it, it was a wall with nothing behind it.  I walked and walked and walked all the way back to where Adam was waiting and the restroom was a few feet past him in the opposite direction--that was fun).  That little park was ok, but we decided to go a little further north.  The last place we parked was a larger parking lot for the beach and it was a nice looking vacation sort of town (except it is Winter, so there weren't many people--the parking lot was fullish, but it wasn't really crowded or anything).  Anyway, the first thing we saw was a condo on the beach for sale--$1,000,000.  The sign looked really old, like they didn't have too many lookers.

There was a nice, flat walkway along the top of the beach so we walked up it.  There were beautiful vacation homes all along the walkway looking out over the beach.  It was easy to pretend that they were rentals to a new family every week in the summer and what a great time any family or big group of friends would have staying so close to the ocean like that.  Most of the homes looked closed up for the winter, but every once in a while there were signs of residency.  It was so peaceful and happy looking. 

When we were all strolled and sitting out, we drove back to the City.  By now it was late afternoon and I wanted to see the Storybook Bridge lit up at night, so we walked down to the River again.  We were looking for someplace to eat and I said, why not the pizza, that I already know I like and we went to the restaurant we'd gone to the first day.  This time they just had dumb cartoons on the tv (no tennis), but we had a nice view of the river and as it started to get dark, I got to see the Storybook bridge lit up.  We called it a night (and I went back to my room to eat cake--I only had one more day to finish it).

The next morning, Adam had a job interview.  I was expecting him at 10, but he didn't come until closer to 11:30.  He said the interview went well, but I just didn't feel like either of us was in the mood to try anymore driving.  I suggested that we go to the Queen's Mall again and just walk around and we did.  First McDonalds (darn if I didn't forget about the elevator and go up those darn stairs without thinking) and then to the Mall. This time, Adam goes in a door and suddenly we are in front of a hairdressers.  He said, didn't you want to have your hair done?  Yes, how did he remember that.  I went in without an appointment and they took me right away (then I felt kind of bad because someone came in a few minutes later and said, ok, I'm back, can you take me now?  They had told her to come back in 15 minutes and then I beat her in and now they were telling her to come back in a half and hour--my hair takes a really long time to blow dry).  My hairdresser was from New Zealand and she actually used a hair straightener iron or something on my hair.  I told her, my hairdresser never used that and she said, that's because she's more experienced so she knows the right tools.  It was different, but I'm not going to ask for it.  I like my hairdresser's experience slash tools, just fine.  It was pricey and at the last minute I remembered not to add a tip (whew).

Well this time around, I noticed a few suvenier shops and I was worried that I didn't have enough suveniers, so I picked up a few more.  And Adam took me to his favorite pizza place for a slice for lunch (except that there was only seating outside--have I mentioned that it is Winter there?)  Across the street the ice skating rink was open, but Adam declined to go ice skating alone (you didn't think I was going ice skating--haha).  We also went into a very cool looking building that was a public library--Adam really likes going to the library in Brisbane, but he needs two forms of picture id in order to get a library card (or even to volunteer at the library).  He only has one picture id--his passport (his wallet was stolen soon after he got to Australia, so he doesn't have his picture driver's license--he got a temporary license, but there's no picture on it and it will take six to eight weeks to get a new picture id.  It is always something and then it is something else. But I digress.)

It was cold and the air felt like it would start raining at any time.  I suggested that we go back to the hotel and play some cards and Adam agreed.   Except that he doesn't like to play cards, so we ended up playing scrabble on my ipad.  He thought using the hearts to have the computer come up with the best word was cheating, but with that handicap for me, we were pretty well matched and he did start to use it after a while.  Later he showed me that he was also playing a word game on his iphone with someone else at the same time and winning soundly.  It was a very dreary day outside, but it didn't actually rain (or at least I didn't see it rain).  Adam said that it was kind of a record--it rains a lot there and for it to go almost a whole week without raining was very unusual.

We ended the day going to the hotel restaurant for steak.  And chips (or should I say very very yummy french fries--score).  The steak was excellent and the fries were even better.  A big group of very noisy guys came into the restaurant right after we were seated and Adam said oh, no.  But they didn't stay long and soon we shared the restaurant with a couple having a romantic dinner and a group of four women friends having dinner.  At one point, (we were right next to the hotel lobby) a worker was putting out an extra carpet in the lobby (because it looked like rain).  The carpet was red and he was arranging it to roll it out.  One of the ladies at the table of the four women friends having dinner, jumped up from her seat and ran out so that she could follow the unrolling carpet and take her bows on the red carpet.  It was hilarious.  She is definitely my new best friend in Australia.

Well I didn't finish the cake, but I moved it to the baggies so that Adam could take his cake pan home.  I sent him home right after dinner, because I wanted to leave at 5:30 a.m. for the airport (well I wanted to leave at 4, but then I changed to 5 and then 5:30--but I wanted to be there no later than 6--more than 4 hours early--I didn't want to take any chances with my window seat and we still had to return the car).  I asked Adam to go out and get gas, so that we wouldn't have to worry about that in the morning and he very kindly said, sure.  I gave him a hug, just in case I would forget the next day and saw him go off into the night.  What an awesome trip.  I'll never forget a minute of it.

Stay tuned--I got the last window seat--how I seemed to cut it right to the edge I will never know.