Monday, April 21, 2008

DAY 176: Day 1 off in Cooktown






Thurs 17th April 2008
Distance to date 10249 km (6406 miles)
There were some strong gusts of wind in the night - blowing hard for a few minutes followed by a few minutes of flat calm seems to be common here from what I’ve been told. It’s pretty safe among the trees though as long as the huge Paperbarks surrounding the camping area don’t shed any branches on us. I had a big lie-in by wearing the eye mask and excluding the daylight - works every time. There’s hardly anyone else here so it’s very quiet too. By the time I rose Jorg was back from a fishing down on the jetty, but he didn’t catch anything unfortunately.
I got dressed and rode straight up to the bakery for breakfast where I had a small pizza and a piece of Rocky Road - the latter was definitely the cheap one that Coles supermarket sell; I recognised it immediately. They're making good profit on these!
Next was the computer shop to upload to the blog, which went very well, taking nearly 3 hours - well, I uploaded 90 pics for you guys which took most time, even with Broadband! That was $17 but included a free cup of tea.
Next stop was the good ol’ Botanic Gardens, a perennial favourite of mine. These ones were formed in the 1870’s and there are some lovely old trees, especially Paperbarks, and lots of resident Kangaroos everywhere where there’s short grass. There was a very interesting exhibition in the VIC building, all about local wildlife with a large section on the Taipan, one of the world’s most aggressive and venomous snakes. This included some accounts of what happened to people who have been bitten by one, which makes for unnerving reading. Another section of the exhibition dealt with the relationship between architecture and the environment, and how more comfortable and rewarding maximising that relationship is. Good stuff...
There’s a great cafe at the Gardens and of course I treated myself to a good lunch. The menu was unfamiliar and I tried something new - a Malay salad which included egg, roasted pumpkin, noodles and satay sauce, as well as more traditional salad ingredients, washed down with freshly-crushed ginger and lime juice.
After a shopping session at IGA, which was teeming with people just after the schools were out, and after laughing at a dog who kept getting in the shop and kept getting thrown out and who tried to pee on my bags as I was loading up my shopping, I arrived back to find Jorg with a good fire going, cooking lamb and spicy sausage - good timing, as he had expected me back and had started cooking in expectation. It was delicious, and between us we must have eaten around 2kg of meat, which required a couple of beers to couteract, which we supped after catching another lovely sunset down at the jetty. I was hungry again by midnight though!

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