WEDNESDAY AUGUST 21     FORREST BEACH

The weather was very pleasant today – warm rather than hot.

John went off to bowls at Macknade. I was trying to get him to decide what we are doing next, and when, because our current tenure here runs out today, and I needed to know what to rebook. He said he’d make up his mind after bowls.

I was ready to move on from here. Whilst the beach was beautiful, and the beach walking exercise was great, I’d had enough of the general grottiness of the place.

The most recent irritant was that the rubbish hadn’t been collected for nearly two weeks. There were two big skips, placed centrally, near the amenities block. Campers take their rubbish and throw it in there. There are no bins on or near sites, at all. Anyone much shorter or weaker than me had great difficulty in lifting the really heavy skip lids. The smell from inside was always pretty ripe, with a good helping of fish remains. Now, the weekly skip emptying hadn’t been happening. The skips were stuffed full and overflowing with bags of rubbish, and the smell was vile. Some of the sites that had seemed to be prime ones are not now so prime, when the breeze blows their way. Gross!

I walked Couey on the beach, on the lead, so she wouldn’t be tempted to return to Bus indpendently. She was not enthusiastic, but we got as far as the houses.

When John got back, he decided we would go north – to Flying Fish Point – on Friday. He had heard so much about the caravan park there and how nice it was, that he wanted to investigate it for a possible long future stay. After that, he thought, we’d go to Cairns, last visited in 1998.

John had collected the mail on his way back. Nothing of importance amongst it, apart from the news that daughter had a bad dose of flu.

I cooked the bream for John’s tea – wrapped in foil, with some lemon pepper, and steamed. He liked it. I had salad.