December 14 - Australia: Cairns

Cairns Botanic Gardens - Run #29

5:45am:  Someone please remind me why I am getting up this early!

It rained quite a bit last night and when I got out everything was still wet and the sky was overcast, which I knew meant that at least for some of the run there wouldn't be any sun to contend with.  I decided to head for the Botanic Gardens again, this time taking the path to the left when I got there instead of the path to the right.  

Turning to the left at the Gardens took me through a mangrove swamp where the running path was elevated about a meter above the mangroves and was a fine gray gravel.  This part of the Gardens only really had a series of short paths, which I didn't discover until I had gone down a few of them.  I ended up running along one of the roads that bounds the Gardens just to get some more time in.  Since there was no sun to deal with I did manage to get a few sprints in and felt it after the run.  The Gardens were great, even if the trails were a bit short--the mangroves and ficuses were beautiful and reminded me of South Florida.  Next time maybe I'll run around them and then head toward the path to the right so I don't have such a hodge-podge type run.

My brother has said that our journal entries have "become tedious de facto jogging logs", but that he still still looks forward to reading them.  I suppose that's a good thing, but I'm worried that my loyal readers are nodding off one by one.

So here's a vaguely amusing story about our recent issues with soap.  

Soap

I can't remember if I'd previously mentioned the soap we bought in Singapore - lemon-scented Coast that smelled like exactly like Lemon Pledge.  It was like washing with furniture cleaner.  Well, we finally reached the last bar of it in New Zealand, so Jon bought some other kind of soap.  I broke out the new soap the other day in the shower and - I'm not kidding - it smells like the flea shampoo we used to use on my dog.  Gross!  Jon says he looked for soap when he ran to the grocery store the other day, and everything on the shelf was liquid soap.  I guess Coast and Zest don't have much of a market here in Australia!

Relaxing Day

Today was another relaxing day.  We're having issues with getting our dive/liability insurance, because it apparently takes a few days to process our paperwork.  Now really, how can any business survive with a lag time like this?  I suppose that since DAN (Diver Assistance Network) is the industry-accepted norm, that they don't worry about being misplaced by competitors.  Regardless, we'll have to wait it out before we can start working.  Honestly, we don't mind at all right now.  We're having a great time in our little domestic habitat.

The Car Dealer

Jon visited the car dealer again.  Ian, the man who owns the dealership, is very nice and Jon says isn't a typical "used car salesman".  Jon took the truck to the mechanic to have it checked out and came back with very positive results.  The 4-Runner is an import from Japan, and is specifically from Tokyo.  So it's lived its life as a city car, and the worst "off-roading" it has seen has probably been when it was taken from its car-park onto the highway.  One of the mechanics was so impressed with it that he told Jon to bring it by when we were ready to sell.  He said he'd probably make us an offer.

This would be nice, because we don't want to get down to Sydney and have to wait for the truck to sell.  It would be nice to sell it here and rent a car to get to Syndey.  So we'll see!

If you haven't caught on yet, we've basically bought the truck.  There are a few minor things that need to be done with it, but this lovely gray truck is all but ours!  Jon is very happy with it, and I must admit that it's nice to know that we'll have a reliable vehicle when we go traipsing about the countryside.

Dinner and a Movie

We made chicken and pasta for dinner and settled in to watch "Angel Eyes" with Jennifer Lopez and James Cavaielle (or however you spell it).  It was a long, dragging movie and if we could have fast-forwarded it, we would have.  So save yourself some time and don't ever watch it.