Life is full of ups and downs. There are decisions that we make that work out well and some that just turn into a unmitigated disaster. I hear people use the phrase “Have no regrets” all the time and I have to say I absolutely despise the saying. For one thing, if you never have had anything to be regretful for, then you have probably not challenged yourself and not lived life to its fullest. Further, how the heck do you go through life without completely f#$@ing something up and saying to yourself afterward, “Damn, I really wish I hadn’t done that.”
I will give you a personal example: sticking my finger into the immersion blender while it was still plugged in and accidentally hitting the on button. There is absolutely no way I don’t regret that. If you are thinking “what kind of moron sticks his finger in an immersion blender,” I can only say I have no defense. Hence my distaste for the saying “Have no regrets.” I deeply regret that incident; the only upside is that my finger is still attached to my hand.
Now, you are wondering, why am I going on about regrets, just show me some cool pics of crocodiles or nude guys diving into swimming pools. Well, it comes back to the Nespresso machine. The one that I dragged all the way across the planet in an attempt to have good coffee. As mentioned earlier, the house in Cairns had a machine, so we didn’t have to use ours (though we were glad to have our own delicious and plentiful pods).
One another side note, I find electrical engineers to be quite smart and amazing. How I can take almost any appliance around the world and plug it in and it works is incredible. It doesn’t matter if it’s 110 volts or 220. I plug my mac in and voila! it lets me write blogs.
Ok, back to said Nespresso machine. One thing I failed to contemplate is that Nespresso machines, like hair dryers, do not have the same ability as Macs.
We got up in the morning and were really looking forward to a nice cup of Nespresso on the deck looking out at the ocean. It was going to be peaceful. Susanne pulled out the machine and plugged it into the wall socket.
Poooooooffffff! It sounded like an old-timey photographer with the sodium lights.
In a quick second, that 220 current blew up the Nespresso machine. Dead. Kaput. Adios. Morte. Ugh. I had forgotten that that kind of machine was not so international as I was trying to make it. So I regret a couple of things: (a) that I hauled that damn machine all the way across the world and (b) that I killed it because I am not a very good electrical engineer (actually, I’m not an engineer at all.)
After a depressing cup of Via coffee, we packed up our gear and headed out toward Cape Tribulation to check out the sights and do some of the board walks. We stopped in Thorton Beach for a cup of flat white. We had some signal there so got our emails, but it was tough, because we didn’t have anyway to look for lunch spots or other attractions. Very old school. We walked down the beach to check it out. No swimming here. Crocs. Well, pretty much every where along this coast there is no swimming. The warning sign made you know you were in Australia where pretty much everything will either kill you or make your life exceedingly uncomfortable.
We stopped along the way and did a really beautiful hike through the rain forest. There were a bunch of midgies in the mangroves and they loved Susanne. She was not amused.
We headed out to Cape Tribulation and checked out the beach. It was the end of the paved road and since they failed to give me a 4wd (which I had ordered), I decided to make Susanne’s life a little less stressful and did not press on to the 4wd section. There were a million small camper vans here. This was clearly a destination in the Lonely Planet guide to traveling in Australia. There is this whole subset of people that pretty much travel around the world on a shoestring and end up in the Jucy vans camping by the side of the road where ever Lonely Planet tells them to.
I personally find the Lonely Planet books to be awful. Every time I buy one, I have the same reaction. These suck. In addition to sticking my finger in the blender, I deeply regret every Lonely Planet book I have ever purchased.
We headed back south and stopped and had lunch at a place called Whet. We had curry and a passion fruit mojito. Yum. They were both good. We then went for some desert at the Daintree Ice Cream Company just down the road. I guess it is quite famous and makes sorbets and gelatos from fresh tropical fruits. We got the 4 scoop cup that included passion fruit, coconut, wattle seed and Davidson’s plum. They were really good. The wattle seed had a bit of a mocha/hazelnut flavor and the plum was super tart. Susanne loved the passion fruit and the coconut while I liked the passion fruit and plum.
After that we headed back to house to cool off in our awesome pool. It is truly awesome and makes this quirky house totally worth the money. That and the view from the decks.
I had managed to reset the modem and get it to work but we didn’t know the password. I called Frank on his cell. No answer. I called his property manager. No answer. I called Frank’s home and a woman answered. He went and got Frank. Frank didn’t really know. We tried a few. Then he said look on the modem. In 4 point font, there it was, the password. We logged on and it worked. Connected to the world. Now, it was nice being unplugged, but it made it tough because we don’t have phone here either. Further, we couldn’t arrange to do things like horseback riding and croc tours. And of course the blog.
We hung out, played a game of chess and generally just relaxed.
No rain tonight, but it did cloud up so we didn’t get to see the stars.
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