Missing few days

Sunday was a miserable day. The laptop had the blue screen of death and nothing Dan did could get it to start. I did my usual 70 lengths swim but then the weather turned. Big black clouds were followed by rain so we couldn't do anything but sit in the van. The highlight was watching Helen and Ian try and cook in the rain. They had to move under the back of our van for some shelter.

Monday the weather was slightly better. I did my swim while Dan took the computer to a shop over the road. They said they'd ring him to let him know what they were going to do. We caught the bus to Surfers Paradise. We were chatting to some English people who had emigrated over here. They were very nice. We got off the bus and realised how busy Surfers Paradise was. It was far from paradise. They were some good shops to look in and loads of restuarants to choose from. We made our way to the beach and it was absolutely jam packed. We found a spot and we played with Dan's new footy he had bought. We weren't very accurate and one time Dan threw it and it bounced up in at someone. She wasn't impressed but it was an acccident. We gave up with the footy and did some cloud bathing as once again the weather got worse. Thankfully though we just had a few spots of rain and it soon cleared. We gave up fairly quickly with the beach as it was full of posers and the building work on the hotels were very noisy. At least we can say we've been to Surfers Paradise and recommend people not to bother.

We found a surf club that did cheap food and ate there. It looked nice on the menu but I suppose you get what you pay for as Dan and I didn't really enjoy ours. Still we were full and it saved us having to cook. We had a daily off peak ticket on the bus so after looking about a bit we headed to find the bus stop. While we were waiting we got a phone call saying the laptop had been fixed at a cost of $99! We were not impressed as he was going to ring us first. Nevermind it had been done and the computer was sorted. We went back on the bus and picked up the laptop only to find we couldn't get on the internet. So Dan took it back to the shop again. The man said he'd ring Dan but never did. We had a quick tea of pancakes and then I went with Ian and Helen on the bus again. We wanted to look around the shops but Monday wasn't late night shopping so all that was open was the supermarket. Lucky Dan stayed with the van as he hates shopping. We did our food shopping and headed back on the bus. It wasn't what we envisaged but it gave us something to do.

Tuesday morning we went back to the laptop shop, thoroughly unimpressed with not being rung. We had to save everything we needed as the computer had to be restored to factory settings. Dan tried again to get it to work but it was no good. He said he'd ring us when it'd be done, roughly 2 hours. I went to the beach with Ian and Helen while Dan waited around. I had fun on my skim board and the weather was much warmer. Lucky Dan stayed behind as a static caravan was being moved and he had to move Pepina around to about 3 different spots. We came back to find a new cabin half on our site and a big hole where another one had been moved. Dan joined us in the pool and we played some games with his ball. It was good fun and the laugh we needed. A little boy, Max, from a caravan near us joined in to.

Dan headed back to the shop for him to fob him off again. They said loads of drivers needed to be installed and the flash driver wasn't working properly so each one was taking an hour. We weren't impressed as Dan needed to computer to speak to his family as it was his Dad's birthday. His dad rang him on his mobile and he also spoke to his sister and the kids.

Yesterday I got up and did my usual swim. I'd swam 4 miles in the last 6 days. We had a leisurely breakfast. I did the tea and toast while Ian boiled the eggs. The eggs were slightly undercooked but it kept Dan happy as he had his runny eggs! We walked to a local travel agent to find out our options for going to Asia. While we were there we got a phone call to say the laptop was fixed. We walked back down and tested it out. This time it worked. We didn't get charged any extra. Dan spent most of the day installing all the things we'd lost.

In the afternoon we sat by the pool. Dan sat on a broken chair and after he heard it crack fell off, in slow motion. He got his leg caught so couldn't do anything but roll over with the chair on top of him. We were just laughing at him, it was so funny! He went back on the computer for a while until we went out for dinner. We got takeaway noodles and ate it by the beach. It was dark by then so we didn't see much. It was lovely food though. We walked back and played some cards. Some new travellers had arrived and they were very noisy. They were singing and playing the guitar very loudly until midnight. We eventually got to sleep.

This morning I got up and typed this up. I decided to miss my morning swim as I couldn't bear the thought of diving into the cold water yet again! Max is chatting to us and making Dan do his monkey impression. We're going to washing the van as it's been under a tree for a week and is sticky.

We've moving about 15 minutes down the road to Kirra. We've booked the campsite as Max's grandad recommended it and showed us a leaflet. We're going to be so close to the New South Wales we could probably walk to it from the new campsite.