Tuesday, our first full day on holiday, began with breakfast at Noosa Beach House. Our friendly maître d’ remembered us from our last trip, which is benchmark service excellence in my book, and I remembered to chastise her for putting me on to Monkey 47 gin.
After filling our boots, we strode off along Main Beach under leaden skies then up Coastal Walk to Alexandria Bay in the rain. We stopped at Little Cove, the Boiling Pot, Dolphin Point and Alexandria for photos, but the best views at Hell’s Gates are still blocked off.
I wasn’t puffing and panting, which surprised me. The only lifestyle change I’ve made in the past six months is going off alcohol, so hmm… The debate is becoming very one-sided. But I don’t want to be a wowser, either.
But then I remind myhself that this is Noosa. We’re on holiday! Is it a holiday if I sip mineral water all day? Nup.
The rain stopped on our return-leg, and we cooled down with smoothies on the beach in the shade. The usual mix of leathery locals and newly-arrived tourists idle by. After a couple of days the line blurs as visitors adopt the local dress code of loose linens, lots of white, and start to bronze-up.
Back to the hotel then we split up. I went to the pool for a dip to cool off, then onto a banana-lounge for an hour of reading. The wife went… shopping! I left when a girl in an orange ‘look at me’ bikini started vaping two rows infront of me.
Not her, but you get the idea. Putrid antisocial behaviour.
Back in our hotel room, I was innocently gazing out the window when another woman brazenly stepped onto the balcony opposite wearing only a smile. Full-frontal nudity! Before lunch! And her man didn’t even look up from his phone!
I suspect he lived to regret that.
After my wife returned laden with couture, we lunched at Season. I had the spanner crab pasta, my wife the yellow curry. I was jelly the moment I saw her dish, full of fresh shellfish, scallops and a big fat prawn.
Yum. Definitely on the must-return list.
I felt fried after my hour in the pool, so we chilled in the room for a bit, reviewing photos and caching up on emails and stuff, then had a glass of saignée from la cave de l’hôtel. Not a rosé for wimps! And a few paragraphs ago I was contemplating abstinence!
When Miss Nude Noosa 2022 didn’t put on another show, we went to the Riviera Bar and had a light dinner, a mocktail for the wife and a Long Island Iced Tea for the man-not-giving-up-on-alcohol-just-yet.
Instant headache as punishment.
Then it was back to the boudoir, a couple of episodes of The Good Doctor on Netflix then bed, thus ending our second day.
Tomorrow is supposed to be hot, so after the obligatory morning marathon I may buy a linen shirt myself, coax my wife into the pool, and take her out for dinner.