Posted by Elizabeth House has turned out to be a hone away from home. It will be hard to leave the creature comforts of such a place and head back out into the dirt on trail.
My bed was perfect. Toasty warm and lots of pillows. A short sleep in was called for before a groaning stomach used to a 5:30am breakfast said ‘get up and get your arse down to the Quondong Cafe’. Eggs Benedict with bacon on the side was the order of the day, washed down with a double shot long black.
Picking up my new shoes yesterday, I had the too small pair boxes up ready to send home. The beauty of small towns is that everything is within a stones throw. It was a short stroll to the post office. The super friendly clerk helped me out looking at the cheapest method to send my shoes home and made sure they were not coming out of the packaging with a generous amount of Australia Post masking tape. Job one done for the day. I only had three more – buy some trail food to see he through 3 days, wait for my Sawyer Filter to arrive and repair my leaking sleep mat.
It felt like a really lazy day, particularly given yesterday was a short day as well. If I wasn’t waiting on a new water filter I could have easily just had the short day yesterday and headed back out on trail. I will relish the opportunity in front of me to do not much of anything today.
Apart from a nursing student staying long term at Elizabeth House there were no other guests and I had the run of the place to myself. How better to waste a day in between small jobs and veg on the couch in front of the biggest television I have seen and binge on Netflix. Mind you though, I don’t own a TV so they all big to me. I’d watched seasons 1 & 2 of Stranger Things at home and pretty much spent the day watching an episode or two of season 3 then switching it off to complete a job. There was job number four thrown in at some point – coffee and cake at Tea on the Terrace.
I got my shopping done, disgruntled on the way home at the weight what inevitably end up in my food bag and on my pack. The consolation being that much of the weight is fruit I’d consume through the day and maybe carry a couple pieces out on trail with me.
My sleeping mat was repaired properly as well. A rough job done yesterday didn’t quite hold up so I spent a decent amount of time getting it done right once and for all.
The afternoon was spent with yet more Stranger Things before getting my arse off the coach and heading to the Transcontinental for a beer and bar meal. Quondong Jam Chicken. Quorn has Quondong everything being a local specialty.
By now it was dark and the a light and story show that airs every night in Quorn was about to start. Shorts films on the local history of the area are projected onto a set of nearby Silo’s making for a huge screen. Stories that I caught included indigenous history and the secret life of water; the importance of the railway network connecting Quorn to the rest of the country in a bygone era and of the CWA feeding troop trains as they came through town in the 2nd world war. It was a great show and popular based on attendance of about 20 others
That’s if for my first zero day. Time for enjoy the comfort of this bed one last time and hit the trail early tomorrow.
Mick Beckers 