Mail & Beach
24 March 2019 | Manly
Helen
After dinner last night, we watched the movie, The Mummy, with Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe. Then started a second movie, XXX, but didn't finish watching it as it got late and we headed to bed. It rained quite a bit thru the evening, so those attending the live show in the park got pretty wet. Someone woke me up, making noise as they came back to the flat around us and made a lot of noise. Woke up a few times thru the night. Finally got back into a deep sleep with a dream. Woke up around 7:30. Decided to run a load of laundry. It took around 1 ½ hours which is much longer than our north American washing machines. Cooked up some veggies for my breakfast. Mark had cereal and banana for his. Mark got thru our mail and started working on our taxes. That kept him busy for a while. There is no dryer in the house, so we put the clothes out on a portable rack out on the patio. By this time, it was close to noon. We had watched a few more Formula 1 shows, which we found very interesting, as they highlighted most of the races from last year. Since, we were sailing, we missed most of them. It was great to catch up with behind the scenes information. Walked a few blocks to the Harris Farms grocery store. They had a small cafe out front. We each had bacon and eggs. Mark had his in a sandwich and I skipped the bread. We bought a couple of things at the grocery store and headed back to our flat. Some of our clothes were dry, so we took them off the holder. Then had a short nap. Then got into our swim suits and walked to the ocean. It took 15-20 minutes to walk the back way. We skipped walking up and down steps around a bridge, by wading across Manly Lagoon. The water was only a foot deep at the most. Then walked along the lagoon entrance to the ocean. We left our beach bag on the edge of the area that was part of the life guard area and got into the water. It was cold to me. The waves were quite large and breaking with full force. I was complaining about the water temperature and one Aussie lady told me that it should be around 20 C but today is was actually 24 C. So, that would make it pretty warm ocean water. After a while, it didn't feel as cold. The day was filled with strange looking clouds that stretched across the sky. At least we weren't dealing with excessive heat from the sun as today's high was 28 C. Mark went out into the deeper water. I was not comfortable going out too deep since the current was pushing the waves hard against us. He free floated in on a huge wave and then went back to do it again. Lots of others in the water were also riding the waves. Some had small boards. I was okay with just jumping over the waves in the waist deep waters. Mark tired himself out jumping waves. We selected a different route to walk on our return and made it back to our flat around 4 pm. We hung out our wet clothes and towels outside. Then started watching another movie. This time we picked, The Darker Shade of Grey. It was entertaining. We had seen the first movie years ago. Mark found some old Dr. Who shows so that is keeping us entertained. We have missed two years of it since we left Jacksonville. Baked some vegetables in the oven. Then added rice & chicken and a little cheese. It was really tasty. Our rental car is due back tomorrow. The Budget shop is right across the street from our flat. We are planning to either keep this one till we leave Australia, or get another one. It's nice having a car. We will do more land touring once our boat is sold. Our buyer will be visiting our boat tomorrow or Tuesday. Thanks for your emails and messages. Keep them coming!!