Exmouth

Greetings to all our friends in the Northern Hemisphere who are going through the winter from the sunny 110 degree heat of Western Australia. We have just set sail from Exmouth on a four-day trip to Borneo. We went ashore this morning on a tender because the ship couldn't get through the coral reef. We went into the town and the ships visitors doubled the population of Exmouth. The commercial part of the town consisted of a little square with a dozen shops, a couple of cafes and a grocery store (IGA). We did enjoy a good cup of coffee at one of the cafes because we don't get a good cup on the ship. The principle industry is fishing and the people on the ship from Perth rave about the good fish from here. There was nothing much that we could see or that caught our interest but we did spot some emus walking along the streets. It does appear they are planning growth in this town because they have planted trees and done some landscaping, we guess to make it more hospitable for tourists who seem to come here in the winter months because the climate is good. We think that if we came back in five years we probably would not recognize this place. We find Australia expensive; for example two cups of cappuccino cost us eleven dollars. There were tours in glass-bottomed boats to the coral reef to see the tropical fish but we didn't go because we had this in Israel in the gulf of Aqaba. There were also tours to the outback but it didn't appeal to us to go off trekking in a 4-wheel drive vehicle in 110 degree heat so we stayed local. We came back to the ship for a late lunch, getting back about one o'clock.

At lunchtime there was a French lady at the table who didn't speak much English. We found out she could speak German so we managed to converse with her using bits of three languages. We were trying to discuss the weather in the U.S. and the floods in France. Not sure that we fully understood each other but we got by. Then this afternoon we were playing table tennis bearing in mind we have not done that in 40 years, which means we spend most of our time picking up the ball off the floor than actually hitting it back and forth. A young Chinese boy with Downes Syndrome came along and was watching us so Morag asked if he would like to play. Mel willingly gave up his bat so the boy got to play with Morag. He was unrelenting and they played for about an hour and about halfway through he said to Morag very loudly, "I think you are far too old to be playing this game." The barmaid nearly dropped her tray laughing and other people sitting around were laughing out loud at what he said.

So that was our day today. We are on our way, next stop Kota Kinabalu in Borneo and an adventure with headhunters. So if you don't hear from us for a while you will know that the headhunters found us. Until then.