We kicked off the first full day at Coffs Harbour with a reasonably timed breakfast (9am) and then spent the next hour or so in the resort pool, conveniently located in front of our room (down one level). For someone who told us on the way up that he had no interest in the resort pool, Damian sure likes it. Boogy boards were in use and Jake paddled out into the (1.8m) deep end routinely, much to my chagrin.
Once we’d returned to the room and showered, we got ourselves organised and hit the car. Damian’s fifth birthday is on Friday and we’d forgotten to bring his birthday presents north. He received some birthday money from his great Nan (via Aunty Gail) so we took him to the local plaza to purchase some toys for his birthday, We had lunch there at an Italian restaurant (pizza, as the room at the resort lacks an oven), then we drove back into near Woolworths (Vernon st) and paid visit to an upmarket Cafe/coffee business and bought an aeropress and a kilo of properly ground Guatemalan coffee for the rest of the week’s breakfasts, since I left the stove top device at home. From here we walked to Good Games where we picked up a new board game for the family and some discounted X-wing miniatures.
After a quick stop at Coles to pad out the week’s food requirements, we returned to the car and then back to the resort. Must have been around 2:30pm at this stage, and we walked down to the beach to see how it was. The water was fairly frigid, so we mainly stuck to the sand and I collected some rocks. Jake went back with Toni as he’d gone in a fair way, and decided to snow angel on the sand. Damian and I stayed a little longer, before I coaxed him into heading back to find the others.
It wasn’t more than a few minutes after we’d returned that the tykes wanted to return to the resort pool, and so we did. About an hour later I asked Toni if she’dtak to reception and see what else we could do on site. She returned with a key, which unlocked another pool somewhere else.
We trekked to what turned out to be the wrong pool, the lap pool, instead of the intended location – the Charlesworth Pool. Nonetheless, I did 50m of freestyle in the lap pool (and half dying because of it) and we infiltrated the heart of the Novotel to arrive at our destination. The Charlesworth pool was ice cold (not heated) but I took a dip anyway. Jake was brave enough to join me and Damian played the smart game and stuck to the shallows. Toni orchestrated three cold boys back to the resort for hot showers and then dinner.
I took a brief snooze for about an hour after dinner, and then not long after it was bed time for the boys. Toni took the opportunity for a quick nap as well which left me to my own devices. I decided to stalk my way back down to the beach at about 8pm and in near pitch darkness, found the water. I took my Olympus dSLR and this enabled me to take long exposure shots with only moonlight to aid. I couldn’t orientate the camera correctly, and out of necessity used a shoe to act as a tripod to aim the camera.
After about half an our of varying successes, I returned via the cold pool and took some lifestyle shots of the abandoned pool area at night. I also took some distance shots of the resort from the golf course which surrounds part of it.
Upon return, Toni was up, so we broke open a new board game (Ticket to Ride – Europe) and spent some time learning the rules.
It hit 11pm and close to lights out. I hit the laptop to write up the day’s adventures, but now bedtime calls to me. More to come.