Friday, 25 October 2013
Anyone familiar with Hughesy's morning routine might, having read this far and noted our presence in a rather spectacular coastal location, be expecting the Day Five activities to kick off with a bit of a walk. That expectation would, however, be failing to consider three basic factors.
The first of those was the day's itinerary, with a relatively demanding walk to the lookout that overlooks Wineglass Bay. Not the lengthiest hike we've put ourselves down for, but uphill, with some steep sections and around three hundred steps.
The second was the factor that did have me outside before breakfast strolling down towards the beach and the view across Great Oyster Bay. It wasn't exercise I was after, more an accurate assessment of temperature and wind chill factor. It had been rather windy yesterday, and there was aural evidence that the winds had continued and gathered strength overnight. These were westerlies, and given the location you'd expect them to be significantly cooler than the winds from the same direction that regularly make their appearance during Ecca time in Brisbane.
A return journey of around three hundred metres was enough to justify the decision to skip a morning walk and add another layer of insulation after breakfast.
The third factor, of course, was the Travelogue. I'd been right up to date early in the piece (as noted in the text), but experience suggested that as the trip goes on I'll fall further and further behind. In fact, he wrote, skipping back and forth through temporal issues like Doctor Who and his police call box, I've only progressed this far, typing Swansea and Wineglass Bay on a Monday morning in Kingston, due to a lengthy session at Margate on Saturday afternoon that extended into the evening.
No, having risen, showered and assessed the conditions I sat down to transform notes and memories into typed text. That will be further refined once I get home to an environment where it's easier to incorporate material from external sources. Pages for iPad is all very well for the initial draft, but Isn't easy to work with when you want to add detail from external sources.
Given the day's agenda we were looking for breakfast as early as possible and were the first to front in the sunny breakfast room just before the scheduled seven-thirty start. We'd just placed our order for bacon and eggs times two with mushrooms and sausage on the side when we were joined by an elderly (sorry, make that older) couple with accents I was inclined to place on the Continent, with Dutch and Greman being short priced equal favourites.