Day 34: Thursday 26 April (10pm, Ayr)
What an amazing day today was! I’m just going to give you a blow by blow description as no other way to describe it …
First up, Shelley and I went for a walk along Queens Beach in Bowen. The sunrise wasn’t spectacular but it gave everything a silvery glow so was still pretty magical in my mind. The earth was wishing me a happy birthday for sure!
Next was breakfast – a quick stop at the local bakery with Jean, our program co-ordinator from Australian Business Volunteers, who has come up to review the program. We grabbed a very light brekkie as we were not sure how good our sea legs were at this early stage. Turns out we had nothing to worry about, but while waiting for the coffees, we admired some of the many murals that Bowen is famous for – 19 of them in total. Here’s a couple to admire and if you want to know more about them, check out the link which will tell you the artist, the story and the year they were each painted.
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| Start of the trip Back: AnneMarie, Jean, Gayle, Leigh, Shelley, Me, Jim, Eddie Front: Coen, Lynette |
Then on to the harbour and all 11 of our motley group met at the boat ramp, donned our sexy wetsuits (mine was camouflage so you may not be able to see me in any photos!), got 'smoked' by Jim who ensured we were all protected with a smoking ceremony and words with the spirits and then jumped in to the two boats.
Out in the harbour, we began our search for turtles in the shallow water. This entailed one or two of us sitting on the front of the boat scanning the water and giving a yell when we spotted one. I was in the boat with Eddie driving, so we’d then point to the turtle until Eddie could get close enough to tail him and we’d attempt to tire the turtle out a little so we could bellyflop in and catch them in our (gloved) hands.
Well, first in was Jim to give a demo. Unfortunately, the demo was on the other boat so we missed the lesson, but we’d had a bit of a briefing session at the hotel the night before, over dinner (or drinks but what does it matter?), so we figured we would be fine. In the meantime, Jim took the turtle up into the boat for measuring, tagging, etc and a few photos with us girls, of course.
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| Not happy, but turtle 1 tagged and looked after! |
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| Me, Lynette, Jean, Jim, Gayle, Leigh, Coen with turtle 2 |
Good thing we took some photos as our many, many attempts to catch a turtle in the water were unrewarded, but it was a lot of fun trying and it was a lot of fun getting back into the boat – I made a meal of it as nearly ended up doing a forward roll into the boat until Eddie unceremoniously lifted one leg over for me and I managed the other one, in between fits of laughter. After four dives (and four unladylike returns to the boat) I had twice managed to grab or touch the shell with one hand but not the other, so pretty pointless unfortunately as you need to get a good grip with both hands. Those turtles weigh an awful lot and their powerful flippers can scoot their body away very quickly, but that's a poor excuse for my lack of hand-eye coordination.
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| Lynette abandoned - she let the turtle go! |
Lynette had come along with us and she at least managed to catch a turtle, but when one of his flippers scraped along her shin bone, she yelped and let him go, so we ended up three/nil in the final tally of Jim vs Eddie's boat x turtles tagged for the day.
Showered, changed, and quite weary, we thought we should have lunch before heading back to Ayr, so we stopped off at one of the seafood shops along the marina and bought some prawns – red spot prawns actually and they were delicious freshly peeled on bread as a sandwich. Can you see their spot in the photo? It was a meal fit for a king. Or me.
Next stop was back home to Ayr where I had a proper shower, with soap and shampoo and felt semi-human again. Was going to do a load of washing but just didn’t have the energy to swap some notes for coins for the washing machine, so it will have to wait for tomorrow now, or Saturday night perhaps. Hmmm, probably Saturday night. Anyway, Jean arrived around 6pm and just as I was greeting her, I saw that Colleen had arrived as well so it was a really good feeling to see those big, warm smiles again – like old friends!
Jean and I finished the day by heading off for dinner at the tavern in town (in other words, we walked to the next block) and then back home for a relatively early night.
I know I should be finishing the plans for tomorrow, but I don’t think I’d make any sense now. I can barely scratch this out so it’s time for bed.
Awesome birthday? Tick! I won’t be forgetting this one in a hurry!! J
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