Day two is a day of rest. We have no scheduled events. We wake up at three a.m, convince ourselves we can go back to sleep, and lie there for another two hours. At around five am the birds start to sing. Many birds. Cheepers, peepers, cooers and cacklers. It is loud but delightful. I decide I might as well walk down to the beach. Miriam rouses and joins me. The path to the beach goes by a trailer campground. A white Australian ibis, a bird about the size of a chicken with a long, downturning beak, is scavenging the campsites for yummies.
The beach is beautiful. We walk by the wreck of the S.S. Dicky, for which our beach is named, and farther North. A group of teenagers are taking a life saving class. There are a few other people on the beach, but it is not crowded. It is lovely.
We return to our hotel and decide we should go shopping. We grab a bus with another couple and go to the downtown area of Caloundra. It’s interesting to shop in another country. Some of the prices here, maybe most, seem higher. A six pack of beer is about $12 Australian, which is over $10 US. Foods are priced by the kilo, and prices are in Australian dollars, so at first it seems like meat is way too expensive, and then when we realize the price is for more than two pounds, it seems pretty cheap.
We have brought backpacks and rolling carryon bags to help us schlep the groceries back to our hotel. Our companions purchased celery. It’s leafy top sticks out of their backpack as we head back. Again we fail to look like the people in travel magazines.
We stop and have lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The very nice Chinese lady speaks broken English, but with an Australian accent. She tries to engage us in conversation. We smile and nod a lot, mostly having no idea what she is saying.
We take the bus back, put away the groceries, and go to bed way too early.
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