A relaxing day
Went down to breakfast and what a spread! The usual variety of bread/toast, jam, local cereals, fruit, juice, also sweet and dry biscuits, what looked like dulce de leche pie and lemon meringue pie. Decided to have brunch and ignore lunch. Breakfast is from 7 until 10 am.
Stayed in the restaurant until around 12, sorting out the blog, answering emails. Then went into town. Bought 4 pairs of earrings; I left my only (cheap) earrings at Jose’s I think, as I can’t find them. 1.000p, AUD2.31 a pair. Bought some sticks of coffee 500p, AUD1.15 a little stick as I can’t find mine and suspect that I left my tiny bottle at Jose’s too.
Last night at the “observatory” I wore two pairs of thermal underwear under my pants, a thermal top with two more tops and my polar coat; I wore two pairs of sox, one thermal, one ordinary nylon and sneakers and thermal gloves with thermal inner gloves. My ears got cold and after a while my feet also, but many people weren’t wearing suitable clothing and were very cold. Eg they wore only jeans on their legs and/or had no warm jacket suitable for the freezing temperatures. This obviously happens a lot as the lady whose home it was (out in the sticks), produced warm jackets to lend to those who didn’t have them.
The days here are t-shirt weather or a light top early morning, late arvo and you get sunburnt very easily.
Bought a postcard for Marj but couldn’t get a stamp as the post office closes for lunch; the pharmacy closes for lunch from 2 until 4:30. All the touristy places eg tour offices and souvenir shops are open all day, along with a large variety of eating places. You can tell this is a small town as there’s no MacDonald’s. There are tourists everywhere; mainly backpackers in their 20’s, many from England.
I booked a tour of the nearby Valley of the Moon and Valley of the Dead for tomorrow afternoon.
Went back to the room and read a little, then went to dinner around 6:45, 13.000p, AUD29.35. I think that is expensive, but then I’m staying in an expensive place. The dinner is excellent; as good as you would find anywhere and better than most. First there is some bread, a bit like garlic bread with a really nice dip to go with it. A generous serve of carrot and ginger soup. The main course is salmon served with some potato and a green vegetable a bit like spinach. Dessert is a generous helping of sort of like chocolate ice cream with berries and a toffee swirl. Tea, coffee and water are free all day. I sit in the restaurant with my puter until around 10, then back to the room.
The bad news is that I think I’m getting a cold, but I did bring Demazin in my assortment of goodies. Altitude here is around 2,400 metres ASL but I haven’t noticed anything at all; no shortness of breath or tiredness.
