Bateman’s Bay – 12/25/2012
Dec 28th, 2012 by admin
It’s Christmas Day in Bateman’s Bay and you’d have trouble know that without a calendar. It’s heavily overcast, windy and rain is threatening. The season is wrong; there aren’t many decorations, almost none; and the walk along the bay has the usual number of bicyclists and walkers.
Generally, Christmas is low key here. In Brisbane, the pre-Christmas look was pretty much the same as the US. The TV was dominated by ads for Christmas shopping but the real effort was for the post-Christmas sales that start on Boxing Day, the 26th of December. Boxing Day is the official start of the mini-vacation that runs til New Year’s Day.
The only real indicator of Christmas is that almost all the reatuarants, cafes and shops are closed. That creates some challenges for finding meals if you are a tourist in Bateman’s Bay on Christmas.
We go for a walk and that the town is well and truly locked up. But we do find a fish & chips/ kebab shop just up the street and have some breakfast. Then back to the hotel and into the car for a drive down the coast.
We pull into a parking area for a small beach that we’d seen from the highway. There are some surfers out on the rollers which occasionally are fairly big. The a strong on-shore wind that is cold and damp but it’s pushing up the surf. The give-away for hold cold the water is that almost everyone is wearing wetsuits. Except, that is, for one rather plump man who is trying to ride a boogie board is the near shore surf. He’s not doing well but, from the look of him, he’s not feeling the cold either.
We are, though. And the wind-whipped sand. Back in the car and back to the hotel.
The day turns into a rest day. I catch up on the blog; Barbara does come needlepoint; we go for a couple of walks between rain showers. An easy day.
That night, we go back to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. Being one of the only restaurants open today, it’s been slammed all day. But the waitress who served us last night is there, tired but ready to go. We have dinner and walk back to the hotel. Just what we needed: a slow day.
Obi-wan