Time at Loyalty Beach

Friday today, lay day, Darl did some maintenance on ute, found the muffler had busted rubbers and was just hanging, so fixed that up. The car is purring like a tiger, great mechanically. Also found the nudge bar loose so fixed that.  Friday, pub day, Mel was keen to go Bamaga pub for a drink at Australia's most northen pub, I said we could go in daylight hours, so went off after lunch.   Not long there and 'ol mate "Tom the Legend", introduced himself, that was after a young pup had upset him, he stood up, swung around and said to my darl, "whose side are you on"?!

Mel threw his hands up.  I been told that they like to fight at Bamaga pub..... Anyway all good Tom settled and come over for a chat.   Apparently he had fought Tony Mudine back in the early 80's in Brisbane, he had been all over, he married his wife when she was 16 he 19 and had 14 kids, 9 boys and 5 gals, now that's a handful.   Kept saying you step over the line and I step in the line....  Shame about the alcohol as we finding these folk are very interesting to chat to, they have some stories.  We only stayed for a couple, then Darl was happy to leave..

We met a lovely young couple at Weipa, Kylie, Peter and their bluey dog Max.   We were surprised to see them come visit, they wanted to see if we had made the distance and got here okay, after they had travelled up from Weipa, Jardine River.  We compared travel notes and they were pretty similar, yep the roads are horrendous.     When we got back from our outing at the pub, we run into another couple of lads we met at Weipa, Geoff and Gary - a couple cattle graziers from Vic doing a boys fishing trip.  It's great to meet some nice people and make some new friends along the way.   We have a lot of laughs.

Guess what, they have sunsets up here too!   Though this ain't the best shot, trying to broaden my photography skills.   First morning we got to Loyalty we saw a few sets of eyes moving across the water about 20 metres off shore, if you didn't see the eyes you would not know they (crocs) were out there.    We are really happy with our camper, though sometimes we scratch our heads at what a mess we can get into for such a small space.   All the washing rules have gone out the window, yep I now wash towels with clothes, should've bought the fluff brush.   

Thursday Island - Saturday 6th

We took the cruise to Thursday Island, just over an hour to get there.  For such a small island it is quite a big community.  About 2000 people, but the have 4 pubs!    When we got there we did a walk to the historic cemetry, something that we had never done before walked around and looked at the head stones, a lot of history in this place.   A lot of young Japanese pearl divers died from getting the bends.    Anyway we moved on from there, walked back along the shore line, got a little lost, had to back track. 

Two hours later.........we arrived atop Green Hill Fort.  Awesome views from up here.
We then took a strategic manouvre cut off a corner and ascended down the side of the hill about 15 metres, through the scrub, that saved a lot of time.. My Darl was at the ready to take my fall, if I slipped, which was on the cards, but I didn't luckily for Darl

We had to have a drink at each of the pubs to decide where we would have lunch.   The Federal by the waterfront (ok), the Grand on the hill overlooking the jetty (drinks too dear)?  We decided on "Australia's Top Pub", the Torres Hotel.   Cheapest drinks and even though we haven't got up close and personal with one yet, we had to have the Croc burger and the prawn and barra twists with Thai dressing.  Very tasty.

Check this out!   One of our neighbours gave us the tip to buy these lobster tails from the Pearl Shop on TI.  $38 a kilo!   So we got a kilo, cooked this one up with some garlic, butter and chilli and kept the other frozen for another night we want to spoil ourselves.    I googled lobster tails to get some recipe ideas and it come up with an add for $64.50 per 500 grams, so we think we got a bit of a bargain....