Day 9
After the footy the previous night, we had a relaxing drink or two in the bar back at the hotel along with a nice prosciutto & cheese toastie, crawling into bed around 11:30pm. This meant, a late start today but, as we had nothing planned, wasn't an issue. Breakfast about 9am before heading off to a open air food and craft market, a nice walk along the waterfront, that was right in the main shopping centre. We found a few little items to eat (a very tasty salted caramel choux pastry amongst them) and some trinkets for the home (the obligatory magnet, a cute little sheep and a beautiful glass frog that will fit very nicely on the drink cart).
We then headed back to the QT, but again, decided to do it via the waterfront, where we came across NZ1, New Zealand's original America's Cup challenge but even though they "copied" Australia II's, which made it a very fast boat, they came up against Denis Connor who, after getting beaten by Australia II, decided he'd change the rules (go figure) and unleashed a catamaran. This series was the beginning of the evolution of the America's Cup, with todays boiats being basically F1 cars on water...
A little further along our walk, we came across the World ManuManu Championships. "What the hell is that", you say? I'm glad you asked. In OZ we'd call it the World "Bomb" Championships. Basically entrants jump off a platform above the water and points are awarded for style and the amount of water splashed in impact...
We then came across some interesting street performers and lastly, had a look at the wooden boat exhibition, which was interesting.
Eventually, it was time for a pre-dinner drink and then some dinner. As part of our package at the QT, we have a free drink each day and so we ventured up to the rooftop bar to avail ourselves of it. Whilst a pleasant place (normally), tonight it was chocker with LARGE group of very well dressed people that were obviously going to a masked ball at some stage later in the evening and was VERY noisy. So we headed back down to the waterfront.
1st port of call (pardon the pun) was Lulu's where we had a great view of some old sailing ships and Di had a cocktail, a "Tiki My Fancy"... We then headed to a chinese place that had caught our eye earlier today, for a really great meal.