Wednesday 11^th December 12.50

We are now on the Gold Coast, living as housepests in Runaway Bay.  Cam, Pete’s lifelong friend, and Del, Pete’s lifelong cousin, are very kind and hospitable and are not making us feel like housepests at all.  But there are responsibilities and duties associated with being, well, housepests, and these do not include sneaking off to play on one’s computer, writing blogs and looking at emails.

We are now on board 2XS, in Sanctuary Cove Marina, cleaning, scrubbing, bleaching, de-moulding, tidying.  A massive job!  I have actually finished all of my tasks, well by my standards, I have… I am sitting, exhausted, and very happy, at my computer – at last!  Pete is under the boat in the tender, scrubbing away at all of the black slime and green grass and rusty bits growing around the hulls.  I am, as we speak, trying to entice him out with promises of a lovely seafood meal at nearby George’s paragon Restaurant…

I have possibly, in the past, been a bit critical of the Gold Coast.  It is all lovely, sparkling, new, impressive, but just not my sort of town.  I prefer more diversity, maybe, and feel more at home in cities with a bit of scunge and grunge.  I am, however, inordinately impressed with Sanctuary Cove.  It is just beautiful.  We drove in yesterday, through an avenue of immaculate trees, spaced just the right distance apart, with beautiful modern sculptures along the nature strip, suggesting, but not imitating, huge tropical flowers.  We passed a most glorious collection of houses on the shores of an artificial lake.  The house were all stark white and square, a bit Mediterranean, with lovely irregular lattice-work framing the front decks.  Elegant, graceful and serene.  Wow and wow again!

Our kind friends Tim and Sally Hadrill have lent us their ute.  “Yes please feel free to drive our uterus; it is a bit dodgy but quite safe,” said Tim.  And it is indeed a bit eccentric; for example every now and then a shrill little alarm goes off, alerting us to the fact that the handbrake is and that we should let it off IMMEDIATELY.  I have devised various stratagems to convince the ute that we are complying although, of course, the handbrake isn’t on at all.  (Some of my stratagems make Pete gasp and stretch his eyes, mind you, so maybe I should leave the handbrake entirely to its own devices.)  We left the ute here, under some shady green trees, amongst enormous yellow and orange tropical flowers, and went back to Runaway Bay with Cam, to get the boat from the Broadwater, where it had been anchored.

Wednesday 11^th December 2.50

Well golly and gosh – Pete appeared from under the boat, looking exhausted and hungry.  (And I might add, he should have been looking very pleased with himself – the hulls are squeaky clean and beautiful, no longer full of green, black, rust, slime.)  He agreed that yes! we should go to George’s Paragon Restaurant now now now!  And what a good idea that was – thank you Cam for the recommendation!  We had the most cheery Samoan waiter, with the hugest smile – “So nice to see you again!” he beamed.  (We didn’t have the heart to tell him we were, ummm, somebody else.)  I had barramundi with avocado, Pete had John Dory Meuniere.  And both of our meals were wonderful – perfectly cooked fish with delicious sauces, not overpowering, served with broccolini and rocket, and bowls of thinly sliced chips, which I TRIED not to eat.

Our last trip down from Brisbane to the Gold Coast was beautiful, and uneventful.  Except that – Pete saw another dugong!  He has gone from being Dugong Denier to Dugong Believer, if not Dugong Attenborough!  We wound our way through the maze of islands in the Broadwater, around Jumpinpin, and negotiated the many red, yellow and green markers with no great incident.  I was at the helm a lot of the way and managed OK, although I was, unaccountably, particularly tired and out of sorts.  I hope I didn’t convey any of this malaise to Pete, who was as happy and cheery as usual.  This has all passed, and now I am happy and feeling good again, even though I have been through another Haircut Ordeal…

Oh not kind of me… Del knew I wanted to get my hair cut and she kindly rang her local HairGirl, Vinnie, who travels with gear.  Vinnie arrived bright and early this morning, wielding scissors, and full of fresh medical ghastlinesses and a big abdominal scar to show me.  I am sure she has done a good job; my hair was just growing right down into my eyes and out of shape.  But of course it is always, for me, a stressful thing to have my hair cut… I prefer the dentist, at least there I can have gas and go into HappyWorld.  Pete had been on an excursion with Cam and arrived back in time to have his hair cut – by me, not Vinnie – with Cam’s electrical gadget.  We will both be tidy for Christmas!

Off back to Runaway Bay when Pete has packed his backpack… I hope we get there in time to have a swim in the lovely clean warm pool.  Very soothing, to be able to swim every day.  I have been missing my wonderful hours of snorkelling in tropical waters.  All those stingers and crocs in Queensland are very offputting!