Our accommodation is a ‘holiday village’ which translates roughly as a motel/hostel. The facilities are very good – we have a triple share apartment with en-suite bathroom, TV, fridge, kettle, and of course air conditioning. Everything you could need, really. I got 11 hours sleep and was pretty much over my jet-lag.

We hadn’t booked anything yet, so we decided to rent some bikes and go explore the area. The bike hire place was very close to the city library. First we headed back to the Esplanade, and cycled along the coast, heading north towards the botanic gardens. After a while, the coast road ran out and we pressed on along the Captain Cook Highway.

We were stopped in our tracks by the sight of a hang-glider being prepared on the side of a hill, on a platform next to a wire, which I assumed to be a chairlift of some kind. To my amazement, hand-glider and pilot were attached to the wire and shot off down the it like a zip line. It seems that it was some kind of hang-glider training facility. Intrigued, we followed the path at the base of the hill, and found it to be a really fantastic riverside route with ample shade and superb scenery. This path eventually led to a large lawned area, where we were directed by various signs to a saltwater lake, a freshwater lake or a rainforest boardwalk. We opted for the boardwalk, and set off once again. The boardwalk was a wooden walkway over wet, marshy ground dense with vegetation.

Eventually we arrived at the botanic gardens proper, and with no bikes allowed, I gladly locked mine up, for I was becoming very sore anyway. The gardens were quite good, although nothing special compared with the boardwalk, which was excellent, but the café there was a very good choice for lunch.

On our way back we briefly visited the freshwater lake, and on arriving back at the town centre realised that none of us could remember where we had hired the bikes from. We split up to try and find it, and typically I managed to be the furthest from the place when David found it.