Still in Southport waiting for the right opportunity to move on

Friday 2^nd June 2017

It is another cool morning which quickly heats as the sun gets higher. Once again we have clear blue skies and the southerly is still with us, but appears to hve lost a bit of it’s sting. We could probably go now, but have planned our Sunday departure around catching the high tide at the right time in Mooloolaba. Also, each day we wait we get another hours sleep. As it is, we will leave at 3 am Sunday morning to meet the 5pm high tide at Mooloolaba.

This morning we continue to take advantage of being on land with a long morning walk into Surfers Paradise. We initially walked along the seafront until we ran into footpath closures, which resulted in us walking along the beach the rest of the way, not a bad compromise.

The track along the beach with dune stabilisation behind the shade mesh, eventually resulting in total closure of the track

So we have to walk along the beach instead

Rejuvenation of the sand dunes is a major undertaking and it looks like they are doing a good job of stabilizing them with more vegetation.

These Ibis seem more than happy

There is always something happening on the beach, but not too many people are in the water. I hear the water at the moment is still pretty cool by local standards.

The latest in beach cleaning technology

A new exercise trend ???

Seagull meeting on the beach

Once in Surfers we head back off the beach to have a look around town. We are pleasantly surprised at the improvements we see. The place is a lot cleaner and the quality and choice of stores, and restaurants etc seems higher. Anyway, there is a much better feel about the place than I recall two years ago.

It is still not a very big place and within an hour we have seen pretty much everything there is, resisted many offers of cheap investment properties by streetside touts, and didn’t take up the opportunity to get a paid photo with a couple of  scantily dressed meter maids. Very popular with the Chinese !!

Walking back along the road, we took a detour through Tedder Ave at Main Beach, and had lunch in a little café on the centre of the precinct. It was great food and very well priced. The smoked salmon on Turkish bread with all of the accompaniments was a real standout.

Back at Mica by around 1.30pm, we had a cup of coffee and a little treat Carole had bought at the bakery (we had a very healthy lunch!), and sat down for a rest for a while.

I decided to go for an afternoon walk to get some sodium metabisulphite for sterilizing our desalinator. We gave it a run yesterday and changed the primary filter getting it ready for the hard work ahead.

Where else would you go to get sodium metabilsulphite , other than the local home brewing shop ?Fortunately I found one only a few km away in Southport. So by the time I got back, todays exercise goals are well and truly met.

Tonight we went around to Marina Mirage Resort and had dinner at Ribs and Rumps.