Lets go for breakfast and show you the where we eat breakfast and how bright and open the area is! For my Celiac friends – that is a gluten free toaster, toast, gluten free bags of Corn Flakes, GF Wheetbix and GF Granola on offer along with a bunch of apples!
Its time to sit and sweat on the beach! Okay, well not the REAL beach as there are no beach loungers out on 4 Mile Beach or more importantly to me, umbrellas (not the ones that go into the drinks although those would be nice!) to protect me from the EXTREME rating for UV rays that this area of Australia currently is rated, however it is the resort “pool” beach! Yes, in several places they bring in sand and place it at the waters edge and then it goes into the water so it feels like you are at the beach! Wahoo!
The “commute” to the beach was quite short – out around the pool to the other side – if I could walk on water it would have been even faster from our balcony! They had some really nice mesh loungers and HUGE umbrellas stuck into the ground that did not move which was great if there was any wind or breeze at all. Nope, frigging hot day again! We got our pool towels out and sat down and started sweating. I called my parents from the beach lounger and was talking to them, lying on my side, while wearing a tshirt and when I got off the phone Andrew pronounced that I was “sweating a lot”. First a lady perspires! Second – what the dickens was he talking about? My the back of my tshirt was completely soaked and I had done NOTHING but drink water and talk to my parents! Yikes! Very soon after that we ended up getting into the pool to cool down!
The pool water, which was supposed to be salt water, was highly chlorinated! Makes sense as it is a pool! The design of the pool was pretty cool though – the sand sloped down into the pool however it was kept from sloping all the way down by a gentle slope up – which Andrew figured out as he is taller than me – that kept the sand in that area of the pool. Then the pool dropped down in depth to about 6 feet and then back up where the balconies were with the ladders to get in. Interesting design! Here are some pictures:
We were QUITE parched after that sit and sweat and swimming session of a couple of hours and unfortunately the sun was moving and Andrew’s lounger was no longer in the shade! Time to move on. We went to the Pool Bar and got a carafe of water with lemons and sat down to have some nice cold water to drink! We actually had to refill the 1.5 litre carafe again we were both so thirsty! Here are some pictures of where we sat and the area (which I know is not accessible) for the Pool Restaurant. We sat instead in the Lagoon Restaurant area which was closed but then I did not need to go uphill climbing with my walker.
Now back in our room for some cooling down time, we eventually got ready to go for dinner. I had booked reservations as suggested at the hotel’s upscale restaurant called Harrison’s. It is a very well reviewed and rated restaurant in Queensland. Great for a treat! It was a lovely evening walk there and they had a table set up for us right on the lagoon which was great! Only issue with the restaurant? To get to that table required me to go down stairs! They said we could eat in the back corner of the restaurant instead which was a fairly dark area, however the ambiance was just not there! Sitting on a balcony surrounded by water as the sun set sounded MUCH more appealing!
The restaurant indeed was very high end and a special occasion definitely to dine there! While there was more on the menu for Andrew to eat – I quickly narrowed what I wanted for dinner – shrimp on the barbie – Aussie style! I had the 6 huge shrimp along with some brown butter mashed potatoes which I shared with Andrew who had pork tenderloin for dinner. There were quite a few wait staff at the restaurant, however our waitress had a certain “air” about her that I recognized but I could not place. I also could not place her accent but it sounded pretty familiar to me the Aussie slant to it was throwing me off! I finally asked her if she was from Australia and she said “no” and as soon as she said the word “no” I knew what she was going to say next – she was Parisian! It all fit together – she was kind of abrupt with the guests – polite but abrupt like we had experienced in Paris when we were there a few years back and that accent – if you took that Aussie layer away was the same as a person I volunteer with at YVR who is also from Paris! I then addressed her in French and explained we were from Canada which is bilingual and I am a volunteer at YVR airport and I am required to speak “plane” French. (that is not plain – but PLANE as in travelers) She thought that was funny! Off she then went – quickly and as abruptly as she appeared!
Next though she had the dessert menu and “oh la la” she said, there is a “sans glutin” item for me to enjoy! I wish I remember its name though – we think it was called the Volo! It was sheets of meringue, sorbet, fruit and whipped cream. Really it was a pavlova (national dessert of Australia) deconstructed! Andrew got a different desert whose name we cannot remember either however it was something like Mumu! It was basically a ball of cake, which they poured brandy over and lit it on fire!
Okay, so after that dessert session my Libra diabetes alarm was going off quite frequently however it was an AMAZING dinner! We completed the dinner by going to the lobby of the hotel using the GOOD elevator and getting some brochures to where we wanted to take a day trip to tomorrow – Mossman Gorge, Daintree Forest and Cape Tribulation! Looks like I have some planning to do overnight! Join us on our excursion tomorrow to the far north east corner of Queensland also called FNQ!