Day 10
Early sleepers meant early risers, and we were all up around 7 or so. The zoo opened at 9. Nick suggested McD’s about a click from our hotel, but we found a café closer and ate there instead. My fruit salad and coffee didn’t sit well with me for some reason, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could really do about it so on I went.
Nick had neglected to mention previously that this zoo has like a $59 entry fee, and he planned a whole bunch of hiking the same day. Our previous experiences finally wizened him up to the fact that we can’t do that much in one day, so he suggested us splitting up, since Ashley rather obviously wanted to go to this zoo.
Matt and I went hiking in the Glass House Mountains. We first drove up to this scenic lookout, then did a 6 km circuit around the base of two of the mountains. It wasn’t a difficult hike, just long, and we were pretty tired, sweaty, and hungry by the time we were done.
Nick said that he and Ashely were waiting to get their picture taken with an animal and needed another hour, so we drove down the road a ways until we found a gas station with an attached Subway. Matt was mad they didn’t have any oil. They did have aioli, which seems to be a thing here. After our lunch (and dawdling around the minimart), the others were ready for us to come pick them up.
It was still only 2 PM or so, so we decided to do a little more driving around. We stumbled across a winery that offered tastings and a buy 6 get one free. And he told us where a cheese factory was. Guess what we came back to the hotel with. Drinking some of the bubbles (what Queenslanders call sparkling wine) right now.
We wanted to stop at a grocery store on the way back, and wound up at one that was inside a mall. We all of course scattered the second we got in there and it took us all a while to regroup with our loot and head back to the car. Things purchased: chips, crackers, salad, meat, more goddamn cheese.
Getting back to our hotel was as big of a mess as it was the first time (recalibrating) with us making pretty much the exact same navigational mistakes as we did the last time (recalibrating), but we corrected our course a little better this time (recalibrating) and it only took us 5 extra turns to get where we needed to be (recalibrating).
We return to a hotel security system gone haywire. Only one of the elevators worked, and when we got to our room none of our keycards worked. We sent Matt down to the front desk, and he managed to come back after about 10 minutes with a functional card. He said that the elevator refused to take him to the lobby twice, then it took a while for him to get a word in edgewise at the front desk, since apparently everyone is having problems.
It was dark by the time we actually got into our room. Everyone was little tired and grumpy (especially me), so I went to take a shower while the food for Matt and I was heating up (some ribs). When I got out I wasn’t hungry. Matt was happy to eat both rib portions.
Ashley wanted to go gambling for some reason. The only casino is on the other side of town and she has to take a cab. Nick dutifully went with her. I think the rest of us are done for the night.
