Connecting in the Gold Coast (Day 128)
It was a day of relaxing, connecting and organising, and of course walking along the long stretch of the Gold Coast.
After writing my blog, our good ol’ Aussie friend Joanna, who I worked with years ago in the finance industry, messaged me. I started to type back and then – ah - face to face is so much nicer, so facetimed her – the wonders of technology. It was so lovely to catch up and have a good chinwag. It’s been a long time. We shared our loose plans and since then have arranged to see her in Sydney – hurrah!
Anyone out here that wants to catch up? We so love to connect with people. Sometimes it doesn’t work out timewise, a couple of people in NZ we sadly didn’t get to see, however it’s great to see if things work out. I’ve already connected to the Three Principles Community in Oz and hopefully meeting a lady called Kathy Whines on Monday who happens to live in the Gold Coast.
I unpacked my rucksack – luxury! We usually live out of our bags however at the Airbnb we are staying at for 5 whole days, we have an empty cupboard with Ikea wire basket storage. 2 baskets are full and my rucksack is empty. The little things in life eh!
Whilst trawling through facebook I noticed an interview with a 3P friend Shannon Cooper, so relaxed and listened to it. I don’t usually make to time to listen to a whole 1 hour interview, yet did. Shannon is such a wonderful young lady and is so eloquent with how she explains things. Here is the link if you want to listen.
We got ourselves ready and out we ventured. First was to get a travel card – tick, we then walked along the promenade by the beach. Some lovely trees, shrubs and birds. The birds are so noisy! Anyone know what this chappie is on our photo?
Next lunch – a salad bowl with falafels – tick. We walked down a groovy street in Burleigh Heads and I decided to get some walking trousers…yes, I know, you would have thought I’d have a pair by now! They would have been very useful in New Zealand, but I was just getting into this tramping lark! A very nice young man found some hiking trousers with dual-action finish pulling moisture away from the skin and are water repellent. Let’s hope I don’t need to use that feature much! He then shared with us some great trips that a lot of people miss when they come to this region…so we have now hired a car for Sunday to explore. Onto a shopping mall and got our new sim - tick. We are getting quite a collection on these now!
On the way back we wondered about getting a bus and a guy called Phil gave us some advice which bus and where (we walked in the end). He was a real laugh and kept telling us jokes. “There’s a great new film called Constipation – but it hasn’t come out yet” Boom Boom! He wandered off, then suddenly we heard him calling us, he wanted to check we knew which side of the road to get the right bus. How kind. We’ve noticed that people here don’t seem to smile much – too busy in their busy lives and busy thoughts perhaps – so it was lovely to connect with him.
Rather than the bus, we walked along the shore. Wow – this beach is unreal. Very clean and the sand is so fine and soft with the roar of an amazing surf. There was just a scattering of people walking along plus one old chap fishing. I wonder if he caught anything.
We eventually got back to Miami, food shopping – tick, and back for dinner. A very pleasant day.
