First touch of the Atlantic

After the endless stream of hotel buffets in Sri Lanka this blogger never thought a buffet breaky would ever be appreciated. Today was a revelation in that sense. Coming out of a few days in the motherland all that was desired was a bowl of cereal. With milk. Pretty basic really, however the Poms just don't seem to think that way. Probably something to do with the fact that over there all base cereal products get sent to the breweries down south and the distilleries up north. The toast here is hardly worth the effort as vegemite is not in the collective consciousness and was not packed (after all these years that's a big miss on this trip).

Duly fed, the four of us headed down to the river to do touristy things. Looking and behaving like tourists on the way. This involves employing many well honed skills such as showing genuine interest in poor quality sketches of the town, taking photos of everything and wearing brightly coloured T-shirts from Sri Lanka.
Just near the tourist tram is an old church which was a recommendation from the hotel receptionist, so in we went. Reasonably impressive wood carvings adorned with gold leaf showed that someone had spent some in here in the past ..it's a pity its still not a functional operation as the pipe organ had a range of horns protruding from it. Would have loved to have heard that in action.

The catacombs below were a bit wierd in that its basically just a long term storage for past dignitaries to hang out until they can be reconstituted when the tech enables this to happen. Have a suspicion this will never occur as the future scientists would not choose to bring these people back (no societal value in doing so). Would be fun though just so they could compare reality to what they had thought heaven really was. Apparently the only way up is to be in rapture when the trumpet gets blown. So we were rapt when we climbed up out of there. The symbolism was profound, the puns were weak.
All of this phaffing around whilst casting punney dirisions on the memories of dedicated folk led us to the end of the line for the local tourist tram and as penance had to roast in the hot sun until we repented. Luckily the tram arrived before we had to sell our souls and we then troddled off down the riverside to the local beach.
Lots of walking ensued as we wandered through parkland and pathways to find a place selling cold drinks which were overdue by then.

The sea breeze was keeping the 30degree heat of the day at bay and with sun shining brightly the locals had stripped off and were lolling around on the sand, looking fabulous in their near to nothing fashion wear.
We had lunch between a veranda and an umbrella perched above the sand. Very salubrious whilst people watching as the container ships slowly moved along the horizon, shimering blue shapes above the haze of the Atlantic ocean.
Making the most if the opportunity this blogger ticked one off by getting his feet wet in a new ocean for the first time.

The trip home was extraordinary. Suffering a bit of fatigue and being slightly time pressured the crew decided to catch a local bus back to the tram.
There's an old saying that goes "You make your own luck"... which is very applicable in this circumstance (as compared to the other old saying that goes "only the Saskatchewan wear leather hats after 3am" ..which has kept linguistics scholars confused for centuries).
We stayed on the bus one stop longer than we should have. This timed perfectly with the tram that was held up by a car parked on the tracks, we jumped on, turned out to be the wrong tram that just happened to take us up to the top of the hill  not the bottom. Perfect. Pure luck except the first decision created the whole outcome.
As the 30degree humidity finally broke and the heavens opened (does that mean the place up there is flooded?) we were back at base having cocktails and debriefing.

Dinner out involved getting back down to the river via the Fernacular (fun!) , wandering along the quay area where hordes had invaded, demanding to be fed and hydrated. We did the same at a hole in the wall joint which was very nice and then had to walk all the way up the hill again as the Fernacular was closed for the day.
Stopping on the way home for a night cap whilst yet more people watching was a great way to end an extremely successful day.