The Disappearing Day Thursday 3/20/08

We’re up early this morning for a walk around the village looking at the detail that we missed on our arrival. We count up the number of restaurant breakfasts we have had on this trip and we both come up with zero (not counting B&Bs) so we find a great spot on a verandah overlooking lawns, tropical shrubs and the beach for our treat. Mary has a smoked salmon omelet (so predictable) and John has the pancakes with caramelized bananas and ice cream on top and a side of sausage. He rationalizes that the ice cream is no worse than the scoop of butter that we normally see, and the bananas may actually be better than the maple syrup. No excuse for the sausages. Our server may be aboriginal or "South Pacific" but her accent is mostly Aussie. We chat about kids and she has two daughters in private school near Cairns and she is working hard to get them into University in the next few years. We hope her girls appreciate their mother and suspect that they do. When John tries to pay the bill there is a missing credit card which requires a hike to the other end of town to last night's restaurant. They are closed but a fellow in the restaurant next door calls the owner and he confirms that they have it and someone will be in around 12:30.

We clean up for the day, Mary does some laundry, John picks up his credit card, we hit the grocery store for supplies for the rest of the week and on the way back we dicsover that it is 4:00 PM. The whole day sort of evaporated. John washes the outback off the car and Mary finishes laundry and we enjoy the rest of our pre-dinner time with a book and a rest.

Our hostess, Sally, has recommended "Casmar" as her favorite restaurant and we also find it in our tour book with a big recommendation so that is the place we have booked for tonight. They show us to a nice table on their second story balcony looking across the street at the beach and the full moon over the water. We get a nice bottle of wine and Mary orders the steak with potato cake and John picks the duck with a cherry sauce and a vegetable mash. Alas, we are due for this sort of thing. John works his way through an overdone duck with a teaspoon of sauce while Mary's steak is so overdone she eats a few bites and turns it back in. She chooses not to have it replaced and the waitress has confirmed with the chef that indeed the hard gray leathery slab was not actually medium so she is allowed to take it off the bill. Gosh, thanks.

We have a big day tomorrow so we do the moonlight stroll thing again and right to bed.

Today's local headline: Dob in a Hoon Sun Herald ((A hotline has been established to report (dob) reckless drivers (Hoons))