Lukewarm Food and Flat Cocktails

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Our accommodation is very nice, but neither of us are quite sure it’s as nice as the exorbitant price suggests it should be; or at least the exorbitant price that we’re paying. We got chatting to a couple at the pool the other day, and she let it slip that she’d negotiated a “special” rate with manager. When pushed further we learned that she and her husband were paying roughly a third of what we’re paying, for exactly the same type of room. Huh? What? A few dollars less we could cope with, but a third! There didn’t seem to be much to chose from anywhere in town when we booked this place so we thought we’d better jump on it straight away whatever the price, or risk having to sleep on the beach. We now find that it’s half empty. The rooms here only get serviced once a week; at the price we're forking out they should be in here making the beds and scrubbing the floors several times a day. We’re now starting to feel very naive. It seems that everything in life is negotiable, and we’ve failed to negotiate anything. We ran out of toilet paper last night so we head to reception to try to get some more. While we’re waiting we overhear the receptionist telling a guest who’s about to check in that there are no tissues in the room, and if she wants any they can provide them, at a price. OK so you can negotiate a rate several hundred dollars a night less than advertised, but they then hit you up for a box of tissues. I'm starting to have second thoughts about asking for the extra toilet paper; I'm sure there must be a public toilet somewhere nearby.

We decide to spend the afternoon under a beach umbrella on the sand. This seems like a good idea until we get there to find that there’s a howling gale blowing. We suspect that if you tried to put up an umbrella now it would probably end up several kilometres inland, and sure enough umbrella man is nowhere to be seem. If that wasn't enough there are signs everywhere telling us that the beach is closed; it seems that crocodiles have been sighted nearby. None of this seems to be deterring one enthusiastic young man who we see swimming confidently all by himself a hundred or so metres offshore. I’m not sure what he’s thinking. If I wanted to kill myself I think I could come up with a lot better ways than being snapped in half by a croc.

We settle in at the pool and then head off for what has become our nightly sunset stroll along the beach. We sit on the sand near the base of the dunes. We then notice a slightly worryingly large number of massive crab holes all around us. Their size suggests that their inhabitants would be more than capable of chomping off our limbs with a single snap of their claws. The sizes of the crab holes seem to get a lot smaller as you get closer to the water. We're not quite sure why; we've never heard of crabs having a pecking order, but we can't come up with any better explanations. There are several tracks over the sand dunes back to the car. We didn’t take a lot of notice of which one we came here on, but the one we try to go back on is not looking too familiar. It’s now pitch black, and we’re lost. We saw signs on the way here warning to look out for snakes. We’re struggling to see the path let alone any deadly vipers that might be slithering around under our feet. Snakes, crocodiles, giant crabs; I think I’m starting to understand why so many people we’ve met overseas have expressed so much reluctance about coming to our shores….

As we drive back to the hotel we notice a camel train waddling slowly along the side of the road. Presumably they're heading home after a late afternoon spent carting tourists along the beach. They might have been a bit hard to spot in the fading light, so good to see that their owners have got that issue well covered - they've all been fitted with red flashing tail lights. Ingenious.

As we settle in for dinner a group of very sophisticated sounding French youngsters pull up seats at the table next door. I'm not quite sure why we think they sound sophisticated, although I guess it's possible we just think that all French people sound sophisticated. If we were in any doubts before about this, they're quickly dispelled when they all order fancy cocktails. One of the girls must be really sophisticated - she orders two of them at the same time. They order their food, and then all disappear off outside to smoke. Their food turns up, but they still haven't come back. Time passes. We finish our main courses, order desserts, eat them, and start to leave, but they still haven't returned. Their food's now gone cold and the fancy cocktails seem to have lost most of their fizz. There must be something really strong in those cigarettes; either that or sophistication comes with a real love of lukewarm food and flat cocktails...... Very strange.

We look for other things we can do as part of the Shinju Matsuri Festival (see previous entry). Unfortunately we’ll be leaving soon so will miss the "Chinatown Tour with Local Doug Fong", whose family were apparently some of Broome's earliest pearl divers. It seems that the tour comes complete with lessons on how to use chopsticks. ...and I was so looking forward to that......

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