We Land on an Island

In a frightening turn of events Nicole decides to take some time off work so that we can go and make merryness with our friends on the nearest available sub-tropical island heaven.

Coincidentally driving past a few of our favourite soft-play centres of yesterweek, and skipping conveniently over the frankly dull story of the Packing of the Things, and pausing only briefly to enquire as the why Mrs Navigatrix has sent us along the Way of the Toll, we arrived an hour early for our semi-last-minute-booked ferry crossing down at Cleveland, another location named after British locations in which I have lived.

The Ferry (colloquially and locally termed a barge, even though it was not led along by horses or driven by an old man with a white beard and flat cap) which was just about to leave had some space so we were loaded onto that, in our car, like sardines in a sardine tin that was part of a whole mess of sardine tins packed like sardines onto the deck of the ship, before being released into the oven-like heat of the outside world from which we temporarily sought relief in the air-conditioned cafe, from which we sought relief on the observation deck, eating our home-prepared sandwiches in the oven-like heat with only the ocean breeze and the backwash of the air-conditioning units to keep us ventilated. Lyra learned again why we wear shoes: we all remembered why we wear hats. We were breathless with the anticipation of what lay ahead. And with the heat.

The crossing lasted about an hour before we were efficiently disgorged onto North Stradbroke Island, our probably paradise island only two hours away from our door.