No point getting the hump

---

Day 47 - Tweed Heads and Surfers Paradise
Blimey it was a cold night last night! It makes us think what we’ll do when we’ve got no power and therefore no little electric fan heater!! Don the flannelette pj’s again I suppose and get another blanket!
The Big 4 site at Tweed Heads is pleasant enough with friendly and helpful staff but on initial inspection the site itself doesn’t pull many punches other than the ones flying over your head late at night and early in the morning! There is a billabong though so we’ll try and explore any wildlife tomorrow before we pack up and leave.
Today started with a whale watching cruise with the ‘Aquatic Blue’ team of Tony, Carol and Orianna. We caught the boat from the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Gold Club and we were the first ones to arrive (anyone surprised?!)! Darryl gets talking to skipper Tony and I explore the vessel while we wait for the other passengers! Once everyone else arrives Carol gives the instruction talk before we set sail, a bit about safety and wearing life jackets for certain sections of the trip and then a bit about what we’re looking for …. whales! We get going and there are plenty of different vantage points on the boat to look out over the passing scenery as we head out to sea. There are already plenty of fishermen lining the banks hoping to secure a meal for later and boats heading off for the day. The passage is pretty smooth and even when we’re crossing the bar, the reason we have to wear the life jackets, there’s no real rocking and you don’t feel like you need to unpack your sea legs just yet! There’s a great view of Coolangatta and in the distance you can fully appreciate the ever expanding city that is Surfers Paradise. It’s not long before the shout goes up that there’s a pod of dolphins nearby but we continue onward as they’re not today’s golden prize! “Whale” shouts Tony, “Right in front of us”! Everyone rushes to the front of the boat which isn’t easy as things have now got ‘choppy’ and the sea legs are out in force! Wow, it’s a humpback whale not too far in the distance. We don’t get a clear view but you can make out the fin as it shallow dives down into the ocean. The journey continues and then the big shout goes up and the engine on the boat is cut, we have a whale alongside us and better than that, we can see a whale breaching the water far in the distance which may be a call to the whale along side us! Everyone is very excited and we’re all happily chatting to our new found friend who is making us rush from one side of the boat to the other as he keeps swimming underneath us! Lots of shallow swimming and dives gives us plenty of fin and body views right in front of our noses but, the excitement went into overdrive when the whale did a tail dive to signify to those who know what whales do, that a breach is imminent! We’re all poised with the cameras and rooted to the spot in silent prayer that this fantastic mammal will put on a private show just for us. And there he is, without warning the young humpback weighing goodness knows how many tonnes springs from the water to show everyone, all be it within a split second, just how marvellous and stunning he is. The whole boat echoed ‘Woooooowwwwwwwwww’ it was really magical. Did any of us catch it on camera? Did we heck!!! I think a lot of us caught the huge splash as he went back in though, you really couldn’t miss that! We’d been on the boat for a while by this point so it was time to head for home. Sigh. We’ll definitely be going out in search of whales again!
Back on dry land we headed back to the caravan. We wanted to check on our fridge because it’s playing up a bit and we don’t want to lose all the food that Al kindly gave us. It doesn’t seem to be any colder so we switch it to gas in the hope that sorts it out. Jeff had told us about Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta so we wanted to go and check that out and perhaps have a bit of a bike ride - we’ve not done much exercise lately and it’s starting to show! Off we go with the car and the bikes on the back. When we get there it’s not really a cycling place so we head down over Rainbow Bay, through Snapper Rocks and on to Point Danger. The views are stunning and we can now see the passage we took out to sea this morning. The sun is shining and considering it is winter here it’s a lovely warm day. The surfers are out enjoying the waves and there are plenty of people just chilling out. We walked down the boardwalk and out onto Snapper Rocks. Darryl gets chatting to a fisherman who explains that you need to be careful as the waves sometimes come up over the rocks and you can get a soaking. No sooner have the words left his mouth does this exact event take place and I indeed do get a soaking! There’s a lad snorkelling with a spear and he yells out to his friends on the beach that he’s caught something. They come running but it looks like it’s a stingray but a smallish one and we figure he might have done something he shouldn’t have as his friends don’t seem to want to help him out when they view his catch and then he can’t release it from the spear. That’s another dead stingray by the time he’s finished and he walks back to his friends on the beach.
We wander up to the Volunteer Marine Rescue store where we meet two lovely ladies, Evelyn who is from the UK and Kyllikki who is from Finland. Evelyn would love to return to the UK but has no relatives there anymore so we give her our details and tell her if she ever makes the trip to look us up. She’s lovely and tells us all about the Dem Jon mines that she thinks are somewhere near where we live in Moira back home. We’ll definitely look that up! The view from their store window is glorious and they often see whales nearing the coast line. In the next room is the coastguard control room which explains why the ladies store window gives them such an exceptional viewing point! We bid them farewell and head back to the car. We have a plan for tonight to go get the food for dinner and come back to Snapper Rocks to cook on the free BBQ’s and enjoy the sunset. Great idea and it was well worth it. The sunset was lovely and the view around Rainbow Bay and across to Surfers is gorgeous. At this time of year it’s not ram packed full with people either, so we didn’t have to wait for a BBQ and there’s facilities to clean up too which is great. Plenty of surfers were out until the last of the light faded away, you’d surely have to be nuts to go out there in the dark? With full tummies we head off into Surfers Paradise to meet up with Simon and Danny. I worked with Simon on the Haven camp 20 years ago and we’ve kept in touch but rarely met up in all the time! He’s moved up to the Gold Coast from Adelaide and together with Danny is setting up a franchised cleaning company. The drive across to Surfers is about 35 minutes so we park up and then arrange to meet them underneath the Surfers Paradise sign! There’s a full row of market stalls tonight which are great to browse through, some wonderful artists and unusual articles plus an Irdiology tent and an opportunity to have your photo taken with a Boa Constrictor! One has a bigger queue than the other!

Spotting Simon is easy, he’s not changed at all! It’s great to meet up and the four of us are soon chatting away about all sorts. We head towards the Q1 tower which is the 20th tallest building in the world, has an observatory deck and should give us a good view of Surfers Paradise at night! We negotiate our way in for a discounted rate, it should have been $19 each but after 8pm it’s only $10 except there’s a dress code - pants (trousers) - and of course the Howells scruffs are still in their shorts! It’s a cocktail bar / nightclub sort of venue on a Friday evening but they let us in for a concession rate (do we look THAT old?!) and even take our photos on the red carpet! The lift takes us to the 77th floor and Danny & Simon are already getting freaked out that they can feel the place swaying! When we reach the top it’s a fabulous 360 degree view of the city below us and the ocean alongside. You really can feel it swaying beneath you. We enjoy a couple of drinks, chat about past, present and future and then make our way back past the ‘pick your own lobster, abalone, mud or sea crab restaurant’ to say goodnight. We’re hoping the boys will come into the mountains with us on Sunday so we can go for a good hike!

Back at the caravan the fridge is no better so we’re going to have to try and sort that out before we go up into the wilderness!

A full day of wonder will hopefully give us a good night’s sleep! Night night

Dar and Sar

---