Mission Accomplished: Grandma Is Still Alive.

We achieved what at one stage seemed impossible.

Grandma, complaining bitterly all the while, was still alive.  Her owners, barring aeroplanes falling out of the sky, would walk in the door late in the afternoon. We could leave the complicated cat politics (Grandma beats up Young Cat, Young Cat beats up NotAStray, NotAStray doesn't beat up anyone but he isn't scared of Grandma) of Cat Manor and spend a week or two exploring the Yorke Peninsula without any cat politics at all.

Roger stalked tracked the owners' plane across the world and provided regular updates.  "They haven't left yet.  They're 30min late.  Oh, now they're delayed an hour..."  Good thing we were only going as far as the pub tonight: if emergency cat feeding was needed, we would be available.

I did all the hard work of cleaning and loading the car in order to preserve Roger's back, which was still giving him grief. I couldn't complain too much given that he did the last two pack-ups solo due to me a) recovering from sinus surgery and b) having scarpered to Wallaroo. I scrubbed and vacuumed and polished and replaced kitty litter while Roger (bless his little cotton socks) reminded me regularly of what I had yet to do and Grandma complained that I was tardy in providing food. We gave the cats a final treat, took a final photo from the verandah, remembered at the last minute to put the bikes on the car, and walked out the door.

Last look.

We didn't go far, just down the road to a room at the Cornucopia Hotel. The Cornucopia had a rabbit warren of rooms above the pub, with narrow hallways, odd steps up and down, and complicated left/right turns to get to our room.  Most of the rooms were occupied by a rag-tag collection of itinerant workers and random old men, so Roger got to share his shared bathroom and I got my shared bathroom pretty much all to myself which was a bonus for me. And who wouldn't want to stay in a place called Conrnucopia anyway?

Cornucopia all lit up in the evening.

After dinner I went for a last walk along the waterfront and out on the jetty.  All was quiet. The fishermen weren't catching anything ("Yet," they assured me. "Not catching anything yet.") Apart from one who was a standout because he sat proudly on his home made contraption of an esky with wheels fixed to the bottom and a seat bolted to the top. "Works bloody well," he told me proudly. "All my mates are lining up to get one." 

"You should patent it." I like seeing people with bright ideas. It forever pains me that after years of breaking my back pushing children on little bicycles, someone else had the bright idea to stick a handle on a kiddies bicycle and there went a lucrative good idea which I could have had, but didn't.

Mr EskySeatMan had caught four fish, which he would take home, gut, and put in his home smoker.

Resisting the urge to ask how many home made contraptions he had back at his home, I wandered off to watch the cormorants who had all come in to roost for the night.

High rise, high density dwelling for cormorants.

And took some arty photos from the jetty .

Back on the waterfront the sun put on a pleasant sunset show. Not spectacular, just a solid sunset with nice colours and a bank of clouds trailing little streamers of rain.

I went home to the Cornucopia which was pleasantly quiet with no doof doof music and everyone keeping to themselves. Our window even had a blind with which to block out the light from the parking lot below us. The bed was comfortable: not brilliant, but comfortable.

Cornucopia lights.

After our last pub stay experience at the Mullumbimby Middle, the Cornucopia Hotel was definitely an improvement.

Goodnight.