With the arrival of the bad weather on Saturday night, we had an interrupted night's sleep, but with Elaine's new mattress topper, she still woke fresh as a daisy. So, after catching up with Justine in the UK, she decided to bake soda bread and prepare a full cooked breakfast, something we both struggled to remember the last time we were able to that. Having mushrooms again was definitely a luxury.

After breakfast and while Roy lounged around, Elaine decided it was the perfect day to deck Paw Paw's halls. Then, after a coffee at the Southport Yacht Club, Roy set off on a long walk along the beach to Surfers Paradise while Elaine got stuck into reading our "Cruising the New South Wales Coast" guide and making the necessary navigational notes for our passage to Sydney, specifically around what anchorages are available en route and what conditions are required to cross the bar at the various destinations. Roy's excursion proved to be very fruitful when he stumbled upon one of Elaine's favourite South African chocolates, Peppermint Crisps. While Australia is definitely becoming one of our favourite destinations, finding Peppermint Crisps here could definitely tilt the scales. We topped off the day with drinks at the Yacht Club while enjoying the Sunday evening entertainment.

This morning after breakfast we headed ashore in the dinghy to enjoy a mid-morning coffee at the Australia Fair mall and to top up our provisioning, but on the way back we got absolutely soaked as the heavens opened and it's been bucketing down for hours ever since. Not the best day to do the last of our laundry, but needs must, so we're camped out at the Southport Yacht Club enjoying hot chocolate to warm up. A hearty beef stew for dinner should definitely go down well too.