Activities...

So what do you do when you’re on holiday? At the start of this blog, I said that what I like about holidays is the simplification of life – you can only do what you can carry and/or what is available in your location.

I didn’t come to Port to do any ‘activities’ as offered by the location though. Rob is at the airport, stuffed in a classroom, doing work. My being here is incidental to that, and I’m ‘on call’ to pick him up whenever his day there ends (always afternoon, but a bit random). Plus, I’ve been here before and done the ‘activities’:

Riding camels on Lighthouse beach with Michelle…

…and the fun and games at Fantasy Glades (now closed I believe).

Back to the present: the first day we were here we went for a long walk, from Shelly beach (well from our apartment actually) almost to the lighthouse, and back again. This is an amazing part of the coast, where the ‘rainforest’ (I do believe it’s regrowth) actually meets the beaches.

Lush and green, with interesting textures and shapes:

Despite how the much Bitou Bush has taken over:

Forest behind the coast is how it should be. I had never really thought about it until I was flying over Port, but our practice of building right on coastal locations, though convenient to our desires, does seem a bit wrong. Seeing all the swamp land behind the sand dunes, it seems to me that the swamp is there for a purpose. And from the air Port looks like it has been built on a swamp – all around the town that’s all there is! I had been told this before (I actually lived here once upon a time), but never really believed it. Nor did I go exploring.

I think this photo shows the water reservoir for Port, but all around it looks like swamp, like everywhere else that isn’t built up in this region. Even the airport was swampy in the grass areas! And it does seem that Port is suffering beach erosion, just like Old Bar. Here’s Town Beach, which looked smaller than I remembered it:

So, other than walking and beach viewing, what the hell am I doing with myself?

Well, I decided to tackle the cooking in a better way than ‘heat in pouch’ meals. Which meant shopping for resources, which took time, of course! A really cool blue scanpan knife from House. Cutting board and containers to contain leftovers for Rob’s lunch from Go-Lo. A large $2 bowl, salt, pepper and cumin from the Reject Shop (and yep, they had reject service to go with their reputation). Crap products, but the best option when you need cheap. We will actually have to leave the bowl and containers behind…

I also found a pair of thongs for myself:

Killed a bit of time reading on the beach:

Yep, there were showers out at sea on this day:

And showers on the land yesterday, so I finally got the washing done (took a good two hours!). There was a fantastic tiny secondhand bookshop combined with coffee shop nearby, which was a much more pleasant environment than the laundry, so I had a cup of green tea, and although I didn’t need a book to carry around, I picked one up anyway:

And food is an activity too, isn’t it?

Dinner at Sara’s Kitchen.

Tofu sushi for lunch, with a ginseng drink.

Yummo treats:

And tested out some recipes:

Cold Sesame Noodles

(served with Asian bean and kumera bites – remind me not to have these again, though I do know their veggie bites are yum).

Quinoa tebbouleh (with falafels purchased from Coles)

And cleaning up the mess of course. Here’s a photo of my work area:

(view from the toilet)

And cups of tea in between of course:

And until today, not much computer time:

Because of the dismal lighting, I’ve not been sewing or reading at night. We’ve actually been watching TV, exactly what this room was set up for:

(yup - that's the bench that is *meant* to be the kitchenette - microwave behind TV, bar fridge beside microwave. No more powerpoints available for the kettle or toaster)

To the extent that we even watched the footy last night (we NEVER watch foot ball!). I fell asleep when it was 10:0 in favour of the Maroons. Then Rob woke me when it was 12:10. And although there was a chance there for a moment, the Blues just couldn’t do it. I missed all the action hey?

Necessities

So, before we left Old Bar, I was already getting a list together of what we had forgotten, that we may need to buy. I forgot my thongs (flip flops to you Americans), Rob his hat. We’re going to need to do some washing soon, and a delicates bag would really help to care for my bras. And we’re missing having our own cracked salt and pepper.

We arrived at our apartment in Port Macquarie (alright, just outside of the town, Rob wanted to go a bit cheap on this trip). The first thing I copped was a wiff of mold, confirmed by a few black smudges on the sheer curtains. We entered, Rob had confirmed that the place had a kitchenette, but as we entered Rob warned it was a ‘basic’ kitchenette. I guess he could already predict that we had been ripped off in that department! Yep, no stove, no oven. Just a microwave, kettle, toaster, some plates and cutlery. Oh, and a tea towel and a sachet of washing up liquid after a bit of hunting around. Washing up needs to be done in the only hand-basin which thankfully is adjacent to, rather than in the bathroom.

“I’m sorry our apartment is a dive”, Rob has whined a few times. It’s actually not that bad, but it’s not that comfortable that you would want to ‘hang out’ in it, which was to be my preferred activity here. There’s a hook on the main wall space, but the picture has long since disappeared. In the living area the lighting is dismal, one over in the ‘kitchenette’, the other diagonally across the room, above a single bed. Both oyster lights, not the best for reading, writing or needlework.

“Rob, did you bring your cap lamp?”

“No, I didn’t actually”

It may have to be TV in the evenings here…

There is a massive widescreen TV (the owner has mentioned this a few times, come to think of it), smack bang on top of the only counter space available for food prep. Why didn’t he wall mount the thing in the space where a holiday print is meant to sit?

So my duty to play ‘housewife’ on this trip has been stripped away from me. There’s not going to be nice home cooked dinners here, although I am setting my mind to how I can be creative with the outside BBQ (surely I can do scrambled tofu on a massive frypan of a hotplate!), or ‘boil in pouch’ meals (we do have one camp stove with us, we cooked Mac & Cheese for lunch which was actually doable, if it wasn’t, I might be in a worse frame of mind regarding our accommodation!). Rob’s going to have wrinkled clothes for his aviation training this week, as there is no iron nor ironing board provided. And I’m going to have to search out a laundry mat and hang about while I washing washes, rather than slip back to our luxury digs which was my original preference (except the man thought he could get just as good, cheaper).

A change is as good as a holiday…and so’s a holiday!

It is such a relief to go away, leaving certain things behind! A holiday really simplifies life: you only have a few clothes to choose from, you can only do whatever is available in your destination, which tends to depend on your knowledge of the place, and anything further to that is all just discovery. And what do you discover? Well, mostly it’s just seeking out the basic things that you’ve already worked out at home: where you’re going to sleep that night, and finding suitable food when you’re hungry, and doing all the usual stuff with a different scene about you.

This holiday is not an unusual one for me, just heading North with my man, part business (the man has training and a test in Port Macquarie) and then visiting our family and friends who are scattered between northern New South Wales and Brisbane. But it is close to a year since I have stepped off the little Island I live on (must be a record for me!), and so much has been going on, particularly ‘changes’ (some good, some not so good, and some mixed). I decided to use this impending holiday to as a clear cut change from one of the scenes I was in. They helped a lot in that decision though. Anyway, I quit it, I’m really happy that I did, and relieved! So it must be the right decision. Now back to enjoying life! And a holiday is such a good reminder of what there is to enjoy!

We left home at a leisurely hour, after filling the pet bowls full of biscuits to do them the day, until their ‘sitter’ arrives tomorrow. We drove the winding back roads through lush bush and green farmlands (not mentioning tree farms though!) to Sheffield, where we transferred to the Scout:

Then we enjoyed the aerial view over the same lands:

Marveled at the luxury of being ‘on top of the clouds’:

And ‘island-hopped’ across Bass Straight. Here is one patch of the wide expanse of freezing cold water:

Here’s Cape Barren Island looking very majestic in the cloud and mist:

And example of the fantastic cliffs and beaches in the Kent Group:

We traveled up the Victorian coastline, dipping our wing to the fishermen and children below on occasions. We reminisced about our short visit to the Lakes Entrance last year, when we sold the Cessna:

We had a short stop for tea/coffee and bread at Orbost. And then only an hour later we landed just before sunset in Merimbula to spend the night. We parked the plane (tied down of course!), walked to a motel nearby. Later we crossed the bridge into town and had a fantastic veggie (adapted to be vegan) dish at the Brasserie here, except that I could have eaten more! Wish I had brought the cherry-cacao raw balls with me from the plane. Well, that’s a lesson for tomorrow!

~Katara Jade

Merimbula, 20/05/2011