Farewell to Blair

February 28

We wake after a very restful night and get our breakfast and sneak in a little math.  It is a beautiful day for a change and we enjoy the hotel pool for a while before eating lunch of leftovers.  We then venture into town to the Lagoon for a nice swim before it starts raining again.  Sam, Blair and I go back into town to shop around and  they end up at MacDonalds for a snack where we discover they have .50 ice cream.  We think that must be a typo, so we order a couple just to make sure.  Wow, we have officially found something inexpensive here in Australia – Crikey!!  Anyhoo, we stop by a the grocery store and notice a nice seafood shop where we see they have huge prawns (green bananas they are called) for about half of what we paid for them in Byron Bay.  We think this sounds promising for a final meal while Blair is with us and return home to share our good news.  Everyone is in for a prawn dinner and Blair and I return to the grocery to stock up.  While we are there, we find a store called The Reject Shop and they have great stuff, including irregular Jelly Belly jelly beans…..cool.  We get some candy for the kids to share and return home to fix dinner.  We are now in a time crunch so we do not miss Blair’s bus that leaves at 8:10.  We peel the shrimp, fix some rice and get it all on the table with time to spare.  Yummy.  After dinner we are pretty much dragging our feet until its time to leave.  We drive into town and have to ask directions to the bus stop.  We find it and a gaggle of young people speaking other languages who presumably are also going to Cairns on the bus.  The bus arrives about 10 minutes late and pulls into the station narrowly missing the throng of people awaiting its arrival.  After hugs, kisses and a few moist eyes, we say goodbye to Blair.  We mention that we are returning to MacDonald’s for soft-serve and as we get out, we see Blair go by and wave to him….its nice to have that final goodbye and small recognition to see him off.  We return home feeling like we have lost a body-part…..just not the same without one of the tribe with us.  We get settled in and off to bed.