Tuesday 22nd April

Chilling out on my balcony playing me Mini Maton.
Swim in the sea, 'tis 22 degrees. You soon forget about the sharks when you're bobbing around in the ocean catching waves on the way in. Steve showed me how to body surf (you just dive with a breaking wave and it carries you to the beach if you timed it right), we played like kids in the water for a good hour before donning the sunnies and suncream.
Jez and Steve had procured an industrial quantity of locally caught prawns which were by British standards massive. We BBQ'd 'em up (how else?!) and served 'em on the beach with a little butter, pepper and salt. Delish.
We ambled for five minutes to the Point Lookout Bowling club which was our local-local. After signing in we tucked into a couple of jugs of beer and decent sized portions of food served up by a wisened middle aged lady who was perhaps having a ba day. The girls soon started getting friendly with a group of builders (the same crew who'd woken half of us up at 08:30 this morning - five minutes after we'd gone to bed) and before we knew it they were back at the girls room (which for now has been designated the party room). Despite hitting on 'our' ladies - who to be fair are encouragable - these fella did have their uses; they hooked up a spoon to one of their power drills and created a cocktail stirrer that any bartender would be proud of. I think we should have patented the contraption, it would have caused quite a stir in the bars of Britain.

The Box Game
Now it was time for the Box Game (BG) in which everyone is compelled to partake yet it's obvious from the start who the eventual winner will be - one of the BG veteran kiwi girls who have bent and flexed many a macho bloke into submission. The rules of the game are simple; a cardboard box, say a ceraal box is placed in the middle of the room and each person in turn has to bend down and pick it up, using only their teeth and not putting anything else put their feet on the ground. After everyone has had a go then the box is reduced in size by a centimetre or two. Everone has another go and those that fail to flex are knocked out. Enter The Man - Glen from WA, all round top bloke with a hidden competitive streak. After about 12 rounds Glen had seen off all the opposition including the reigning world champion Nickers and ex-Russian gymnast Pip. He wa duly crowned as World Box Game Champion as the crowds went wild.

When The Rain Comes They Run and Hide Away (The Beatles: Rain)
After receiving many a polite phonecall from the owner of the resort asking us to simmer down a bit we took ourselves off to the beach with an Esky full of beer. For those that don't know, an Esky is the tradename for a big icebox, it has become so widespread that now Esky is the name given to all iceboxes, a bit like the way sellotape started off as a tradename and now has become the universal descriptor for sticky tape. After some time and no small amount of revellry the heavens opened. Lightening had been flashing all around and finally it was our turn to experience the tropical downpour. As people scattered like rats leaving a sinking ship, Jezza and I stood chatting. We were getting absolutely soacked to the bone in our t-shirts but this was warm rain, this was refreshing rain. We hadn't experienced this sort of thing for years, it was fantastic to stand there as the heavens took its turn to display it's power - flashing lightening all around us and thudding large warm rain drops into our faces. It was quite a liberating feeling, neither of us could understand why people would miss an opportunity like this, we'd both arrived here via a chilly English winterland, so to get a warm celestial greeting was just perfect.
After the rain abaited we skipped back through the bush and upto Ian and Glens room where an impromtu photo session took place before I headed to Jez's and we sat out on his balcony watching the storm move off into the distance.