Tuesday 24 February 2015

The Gold Coast

Tuesday 24th February 2015

At Burleigh Heads

Dear Futurest

Quite probably this will be my last letter as we have only a few more days before we return to England. A week today should see us back in Warwick and I shall have to get to know you all over again.

 

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A dweller of the Bush

 

Hopefully you have been okay while I’ve been away and if all the jobs have been done on board as I asked, I expect you will be feeling tons better anyway. Soon we shall be cruising again, you and I, back to the old happy routine which I am sure after your enforced stagnation over the winter, you will relish. I most certainly will even though my travels over the winter have been glorious.

 

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Purling Falls, Springbrook National Park

 

Tomorrow morning early we leave Sharon’s house and fly from Brisbane down to Hobart in Tasmania for the last weekend of our Australasian Adventure.

 

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Lace Monitor

 

In Hobart Janis and I are attending a Blue Star Line staff reunion. Though this company for whom I used to work no longer exists, each year old shipmates get together alternating biannually between Australia and New Zealand down here and separately in England for a bit of a ‘bean feast’; an excuse for old mates to get together for a yarn or two. This year the Australasian one is in Hobart and timed just right for Janis and I to attend.

 

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Kookaburra

 

On the list of attendees there are one or two names that I remember quite well from fifty plus years ago but whether I shall recognise the faces that belong to the names is another matter. The festivities are scheduled to take place all over the weekend so it should be a good opportunity to renew past relationships.

 

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Carpet Python

 

We have been staying with Janis’s sister here at Burleigh Heads for nearly three weeks and for the first fortnight Sharon used some of her annual leave to show us around. Consequently she has had to put up with us at very close quarters for some time. However she has been a marvellous hostess and an excellent tour guide. Janis and I would never have seen and enjoyed many of the places and their amazingly diverse wildlife if it hadn’t been for Sharon’s enthusiastic guidance.

 

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Kangaroos at the side of the road

 

However over the last week the Coast hasn’t been so golden as it could have been. We have been deluged by intermittent heavy showers as a result of a Category 5 cyclone called ‘Marcia’ which hit the Queensland coast recently. Fortunately for us the  damage caused by the severely high winds was well to the north but for a number of days the heavy rain here has been prolonged. However the air temperature has remained up towards the thirty degree mark all the time so we haven’t suffered from the cold in any way and in between showers our wet clothes have dried on our bodies very satisfactorily.

 

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Watchful Koala

 

Well Old Friend, we are coming to the end of this phase in our lives. I hope you have enjoyed these letters. I have certainly enjoyed writing them.

Being made predominantly of steel you are definitely classed in the Mineral category of Mass, logically therefore without any consciousness. However I always feel when I am aboard that there is some response from you towards my behaviour or simply to my being there, which to me implies that somewhere deep within your atoms of creation you can understand me. And this on its own is enough excuse for me to enjoy writing to you.

See you in a week’s time.

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