After packing as much as possible last night, we were up by 6am to be ready for the hire car to pick us up at 7.10am and transport us to Williamtown Airport enjoying the minimal traffic. Everything happened in good time, the flight was on time - soon after we had climbed above the 2 or 3 layers of clouds to the 37,000 ft mark, we began our descent - arriving at Brisbane airport about 10 minutes after we left Williamtown because of the lack of daylight saving here. The taxi run from the airport to Margate was clear being 10am on a Sunday morning.
The motel let us into our room early to drop off our bags and have a cuppa. It is on the waterfront, with a great pedestrian/cycleway along the coast, so we "pedestrianed" off to Redcliffe Pier, stopping occasionally to watch sky divers land on the beach; take in the scenery including the well designed and extensive man made "lagoon" (big swimming pool and park area - all free and very well patronised today); marvel at the concentration of blue jelly blubbers on the beach that convinced us we don't want to swim here; found Sunday markets and huge crowds at Redcliffe. At Redcliffe, we enjoyed a Subway lunch at a picnic table under cover in the middle of the pier. Although this morning's flight was in or above cloud all the way, with rain patches around Brisbane, the skies cleared here to a glorious day. The extensive waterfront cycle/walkway (which goes beyond what we walked in both directions) and the parks and "lagoon" along the way were very well used by man and beast and bikes for walks, picnics, parties and rides. My step tally for today is 13,270. Marks along the walkway indicate we were taking 154 steps per 100 metres.
At 2pm (local time) we met Coral Moody (Amanda's friend who taught us Creative Memories when she lived in Newcastle) at a Coffee Shop and had a 2 1/2 hour catch up over coffee and milkshakes. She offered to drive us back to the motel, but we walked back buying dinner and sitting opposite the motel taking in the scenery some more before the sun disappeared. (Almost 13,500 steps today)
