Day 36 - Dolphin spotting, hiking and pedicures

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This morning was a very different start to the day. I had set my alarm for 8, but was up and around at 7:20! My first job was to check on how my washing has dried overnight. It’s all in my balcony area, set over the chairs. I opened my patio doors, and the cold hit me! Wow, it’s chilly outside! I turned it all around to maximise the drying, then made myself a coffee.

I’ve got a bit of life admin to do this morning. I need to check how I am doing on phone data, it may need a top up. Then to check on my top up Post Office money card, also to check if I need to top that up too. I need to do these jobs whilst I am in strong WiFi, because I need to swap back to my own SIM card to do these jobs.

The SIM is great. I have only used 8g out of 30g. Then I topped up my money card. I still had some money on, but decided to top it up whilst I had good WiFi! Now, I’m good to go!

I met with Angelika and Timo to walk over to the shops to get something for brekky. There is an Aldi with walking distance, and we are all keen to check it out, to compare to our stores at home. All three of us were pleasantly surprised that they are very similar in the way they are set up. They do have different products, here and those’re, but overall, we all felt like we were back home. Even though, Timo and Angelika are German, and obviously, I’m English!!!!

We picked up bananas and pain de chocolat, and also some snacks for in the bus from Aldi, the went round the corner to get a takeaway coffee. We drank our coffee as we walked back to the hotel. We have to be on the bus for 10am, so we just had enough time to sort out our bags, and needs for the day. In order to make it in time. We took our food with us.

We set off for Downtown Shoal Bay to meet with the boat for the dolphin spotting. It will be bottle nosed dolphins that we are looking for today. It will be great to see them today, but yesterday’s chance sighting on natural settings will be hard to beat!

We had about an hour and a half on the boat, it was a lovely, relaxing boat trip. We did see dolphins, but all of the sightings were under mostly the sea, and out view was regularly interrupted by the many Asian passengers hanging over the sides of the boat with their long selfie sticks!

Charles bravely participated in the dump net experience. It is a supported net at the rear of the boat to allow for bathing. I did consider doing it, but the sheer inconvenience of getting the swimmers on, then getting them off again outweighed the need to do it! But it did look like a fun thing to do!

With all that said, it was a stunning trip. The scenery was incredible, and the weather was perfect!

We got back into the bus to go to do the Tomaree Head Summit Hike. This is where the gunning placements are set from WW2. We passed through a great looking beach at Fingle Bay before reaching our starting point.

We diligently filled our water bottles and used the loos before starting. I can’t lie, I looked up, and thought… that looks impossible for me, but im going anyway! I considered that I can only fail this, if I don’t try. So off I went!

We started the climb, within minutes, my heart rate was at 130!! I was clearly going too fast! Angelika spoke with me about pacing it. OMG… what a difference that made. We climbed up the huge hill, slowly, and considered. Angelika walked in front of me, I kept to her pace, although that wasn’t really her pace, she was doing it for me! The difference was unbelievable for me! I was so comfortable like this. To be fair, it took us longer to do, but I wasn’t even out of breath. I actually enjoyed the walk. Aldi, at this pace, I could take in everything around me. Timo and Charles took off to complete it at their own pace, that was good for them.

We saw a brilliant example of the markings left on a gum tree by the scribbly gum moth! I’d heard about the markings, but this was my first sighting! We saw so many different birds on the way up, that normally, I wouldn’t see because I’d have my head down, sweating and panicking!

What a life long lesson that was for me! Honestly, I couldn’t have done it if Angelika hadn’t stepped in, and changed the way I approached it. When we finally got to the top, I wasn’t even out of breath, and was able, and happy to enjoy the stunning views that I’d earned the right to see! We also saw the gunning post from WW2. They had a Birds Eye view from that position!

We stayed up at the top for quite a while, just to enjoy it. Then we used exactly the same strategy to walk back down. I set the workout on my Iwatch. The round trip was 2.7km. It took 1 hour 30 minutes. The elevation gain was 165m. When we finally reached the bottom, I was feeling so proud of myself. I will never forget this lesson! I wish that I had this information when I walked to the lighthouse!! Ha ha

At the bottom, we met with Lyndsey. She was sitting peacefully, surrounded by kookaburras! Timo and Charles returned from the beach to join us. They were out taking photos using Timo’s drone. It was the first time he had brought it out, so they were both happy with that!

We made a plan to go to the Country Club for lunch. Lyndsey didn’t join us, she drove the bus back to the hotel. It’s a free afternoon for us. Lunch was good, I opted for the burger today. It was a bit pink for me, but I was so hungry after the walk, I just cracked on, and ate it!

After lunch, Charles decided to do the long walk back to the hotel. He seems to enjoy the long walks. Timo opted for a Thai massage. He’s having back issues, so that’s perfect for him. Angelika and I wanted our feet doing. Angelika would have also had a massage, but we couldn’t get booked in anywhere. We walked for a long time looking for somewhere with an appointment available, but we didn’t manage it. We decided to get an Uber to the next harbour where we could see on Google map, had a lot of places to try. we ended up in a nail bar getting a pedicure. Ooohhh… it was nice! My feet felt wonderful afterwards. I was finished first, then they got on with Angelika. It only took about 45 minutes, then we were ready to go. There was only one problem… for me…. I had full sandals on, not flip flops, and I’d just had my toe nails painted!!! The lady advised…. Can you walk barefoot! I did that as I didn’t want to spoil my nails, but my lovely clean feet were very soon filthy!!! But never mind!

We struggled to meet up with Timo, due to our change of location. Timo decided to stay round the beach area working his drone, so Angelika and I got an Uber back to the hotel.

We met with Lyndsey to collect our belongings that we had left on the bus. We need to sort out tonight’s dinner, so we decided to all go to Cole’s to buy whatever we needed. We decided on an anti pasti type dinner. I bought tabbouleh, pasta mayo, cheese, prosciutto and bread. Angelika got the same, but added olives… I think! We walked back over to the hotel to eat.

We set it up on my patio, whilst we were eating the boys came out from the pool. They didn’t want to eat, so we finished up, then agreed on an early night!

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