Lindeman Pg 6

Tue 23rd Nov
After breakfast, despite the still strong winds, we decided to do all of the remaining walks including again attempting Plantation Beach because we had become convinced that we did not get to it on the last attempt. As we turned across the front of the grass airstrip I found a very large stick and decided to take it with me as a walking aide. It was fabulous and really did assist me in keeping my feet when I slipped. We found the journey to the rocky beach to go incredibly quickly and couldn’t believe that the ground was no wetter than last time after the quantity of rain we’d had over night. Mind you, can it get wetter than this?

This time we crossed the stream and continued on a rocky path through the trees which led to a very decent climb up a grassy hill. We came out onto clear grassland with views up to what we presumed to be Mt Oldfield, though this side of it had some sheer cliffs that we had not seen on our climb to the top of the Mount 2 days ago. Soon we were sloping down again and meandering roughly around the coastline but always separated by trees from the beach. Then, coming onto another rocky beach we saw a deep gully with some fast-flowing water heading for the ocean. This one would have been jumpable – just – had we trusted the banks, but for all the rocks around it, the banks were quite sandy. There were a few small boulders in the water but not enough to use as stepping stones so we just had to do our best at scrambling down the thigh-height banks pretty much into the water and up the other side.

Yet another path greeted us and we continued on, eventually reaching a third rocky beach with trees in the water. To our left was a wide flowing channel of water and beyond that we could see a stretch of sandy beach. Ah, now we understood what the blurred brochure meant by ‘check the tide before you go’. We would not be able to get to the sandy beach without wading, probably waist-deep, through the channel. Bummer!

You can’t really see the channel of water but it’s to David’s left between the trees and the white strip of sand behind the tree in the water. The channel would have been 3 or 4 metres across. I would almost have been game to try to walk through it if David had, but I’ve learned the hard way to trust his judgement!

We jokingly suggested setting up camp and waiting for the tide to recede even if it took 12 hours or so, but we had to accept that after 2 attempts we were never going to make it to the one beach that would be worthy of laying on but it didn’t matter as there was no sun to bathe in anyway.

We went back the way we’d come, admiring the large, carefree butterflies in the abundant daisy bushes along the way. Once we’d crossed the airport strip we decided to have morning tea in the little airport hut (open-sided wooden shed with a bench truly) and use the ‘facilities’ while we had access to them. We sat and ate the last of the birthday cake and an apple each that we’d brought out from breakfast and then set off on the familiar path that led to the mountain; along the slippery walkway and through the 2 mud baths beyond. This time we were already wet and muddy of foot so we marched right through the middle of them without a care.

There was an early turn-off or a further one that we could have taken but I decided that the first went closer to a large lake that was shown on the brochure and because we hadn’t seen enough water yet it would be nice to see it. Yes, I jest. Well I guess it was predictable enough but the lake had overflowed its banks and swallowed up the path!!! David said “I’m not walking through that!!!” and I said “Aren’t you?” and splooshed right along the centre of it. We were rewarded with a beautiful view of a huge lake absolutely covered in water lilies, some of them in bloom.

The rest of the walk you can guess without me telling you. 1.9 kms of puddles but accompanied by some beautiful butterflies and yet more species of fungi which were all interesting. I don’t mean to sound negative because we thoroughly enjoyed the time together, seeing what there was to see and walking along hand in hand unless the path really narrowed and got steep and we were rewarded by finding that Coconut Beach had sand! So what did I photograph? Yup, the rock pile on one end of it ROFL It also had 3 or 4 coconut palms so I guess that’s how it got its name.

From here we took the path to the next beach, named Boat Port. This was to be mostly a circular walk so more interesting than those we’d done so far where we had to come back the way we’d gone.

This rocky waterfall was actually steps in the pathway and just a few metres further on was a narrow stream which I stepped in just to see how deep it was. I was rather surprised when it reached my knees. David chose, wisely, to step over it. Boat Port was also sandy but nowhere near as pretty as Coconut Beach had been. There was a really unusual rock formation which would be hidden under the water at high tide and we walked along it because there wasn’t much else there to do.

There was a large height difference on one section of the sand and I sat on the high part for a while with my legs dangling as they would in a chair and chatted with David. There was a small, bum-sized part of the sand near a tree that was dry just for me.

The path from Boat Port was rather steeper than any we’d done so far. It was the only one that made us puff in places and we enjoyed the challenge. We also enjoyed knowing that we’d now done all of the available walks. That day we probably walked about 11 kms if the signposts were to be believed. Plantation Beach was a 4.2 km return trip and the Coconut Beach/Boat Port Circuit 6.5 kms round trip, plus we’d done some wandering on the beaches. The Gap Beach/Mt Oldfield day had probably been around 7.5 kms and the failed walk to Plantation Beach probably 2 or 3 kms. Not counting all the walking, climbing and steps around the village we probably covered a good 20 kms in the week which wasn’t bad given the weather.

We were grateful for having had our morning tea as we’d walked through the lunch session time and missed it entirely so we went to our room for a well-earned shower and change of clothes. We decided we may as well go and settle our account at reception as we wouldn’t be buying anything more. We also chose to attend the ‘Snacking’ in the dining room. David made himself up a small hamburger and I had a tiny sandwich made of slivers of French bread stick with some cheese and onion in it. It was very yummy and very welcome.

We then went back up to reception as it was now within 24 hours of flying home and we could confirm our seats but, disappointingly, we were too late to get a window seat. When we got back to our room there was a sheet of paper giving us the details of when we must settle our account/hand in keys/catch the ferry etc the next day. We were surprised to see our ferry was at 9.15 as we’d originally been told 11 am. Truth is that once you’re packed and ready to go though it really doesn’t make a lot of difference so we weren’t about to complain.

We went for a drinky poo instead 🙂 I’d been trying to track down Matthew, the gifted bar tender who made my Cappuccino Cocktails so that I could get the recipe from him but he’d had his day off yesterday. However, this time I was lucky and he gave the recipe to me along with permission to share it on my website. I hope you see this Matthew!!!

MATTHEW’S DELICIOUS CAPPUCCINO COCKTAIL
1 shot crème de kafe
1 shot baileys
1 shot white crème de cacao
4 shots milk
Shake with some ice but then strain the ice out – yaayyyy, I hate ice in alcoholic drinks because it melts and makes the bottom part all watery and yuk. Thank you Matthew for your delicious drinks and to all the bar staff for caring for us so well. I have to say that of all the G.O.s, you guys definitely worked the most constantly!!! I suspect it may be the same situation in the kitchen as well but we didn’t see there.

Tonight’s dinner was a Mexican theme and the only thing I can remember were the tacos. They had chicken mince in them so I had a vegetarian one which just meant I had lettuce, cheese and some sauce. It wasn’t very inspiring but that was my doing, not the chef’s. We were joined tonight by Tim, the new sound engineer and he was most interesting to chat with. He also had a very sexy voice, but I didn’t tell him that hee hee. He told us he’d been a radio announcer in New Zealand and I wasn’t surprised by the radio announcer part – just the NZ part. He was very well spoken, as you’d hope, and had no perceptible accent at all. He had only been at Club Med for a week or so, learning the ropes ready for Kal to leave.

Once Tim left to go and prepare for the show we were joined by Muzza. He was great fun. One of the few G.O.s closer to our own age, although we had more than 10 years on him! He ran the boating activities so I don’t know what he’d been up to the past couple of days while that was all shut. Probably paperwork or maintenance etc. He asked us what he said he asked all couples – ‘How did you meet?’ It was the first time we’ve been asked that in a very long time and it was a fun question to answer. I think we convinced him to come and live in Perth during our short chat anyway.

The show tonight was entitled Cabaret. It was bits of this and bits of that but we thoroughly enjoyed the opening act which was 3 of the male G.O.s wearing hats with Velcro on the outside. They started out with a white ‘pompom’ each on top of their hats and got up to endless tricks in swapping the pompoms. Just when you thought they’d exhausted all possible ways of transferring them to each other they’d come up with another and it was both funny and very clever.

After the show it was dance time and amongst others, Steve led us once more in the ‘Hands up’ song, which is apparently the theme for all Club Med resorts. We’ve been back almost 2 weeks and David’s still singing it and doing the dance actions.

The following activity was ‘Round the world ping pong’ where about 6 or 8 people were chosen and given ping pong bats and you had to hit the ball carefully to your opponent so that they could easily return it, then you had to belt round the table to the opposite side ready to queue up and then receive a ball. If you missed a ball hit to you, or caused an opponent to miss, you were out. Once there were only 2 players they played until a point was lost. There were several games and then a final for each winner. It was fun and I’d have liked to play more but we only got the one tournament.

Soon after this we went back to our room and, for the most part, packed our bags. Always so sad to be so close to the end of a holiday.

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