Hot Tub at the Hotel before Dinner
Australia Travelog #33
Leura, NSW - Fri, 29 Dec 2023, 6pm
After all that hiking today on an already-sprained ankle I felt what I needed was a good soak in the hotel's hot tub. Plus, it's no yet dinner hour- so many restaurants in the area are closed, including the one we want to eat at tonight. Unlike in the US ordinary restaurants aren't open throughout the day. Many serve lunch, close from 2-5pm or 2-6pm, then reopen for dinner. Others stay open from lunch until 5pm but then close for the day. And several only serve dinner, not opening at all until 5 or 6pm. On the one hand, this makes sense: people who run locally owned restaurants don't want to work all day. On the other hand, coming from the US, it's downright weird to see so much of service industry, well, not be serving.
Anyway, about that hot tub....
The hotel has a fairly large indoor pool as well as a very small outdoors pool. The hot tub is indoors. I do wish it were outdoors. Building the lap pool indoors, I understand. Even the summer weather here is not always hot- or even warm. Like, it's literally the middle of summer right now, equivalent to late June in the northern hemisphere, and it's barely 70° F (21° C) this afternoon. But the hot tub feels great even on cooler days, so it'd be nice to have it outdoors with the fresh air instead of indoors where we breathe chlorinated, mildewed air and hear the echoing screams of children apparently trying to kill each other in the pool.
After our aching muscles got a pounding from the jets in the water and our ear drums got a pounding from the kids in the pool, we returned to our room to dry off and dress for dinner.
And this is our room (photo above). Yeah, it's pretty messy right now. When I occasionally describe checking into a hotel with a line like, "We entered the room and immediately strewed our belongings everywhere," this is what I mean. 🤣
Okay, we're not usually this messy. Right now we've got a lot of different clothing, gear, and food laid out. And we're tired and achy, so leaving things like shoes and pants lying on the floor until tomorrow seems reasonable. And what's on the floor is mostly dirty clothes. We'll just kick them into a pile against the wall to straighten up. All our clean clothes are in the closet or in the one open suitcase. The other two suitcases, empty, are tucked away in the closet. So I guess what I'm saying is (a) this is more mess than normal and (b) as bad as it looks it could also be way worse. 🤣
Leura, NSW - Fri, 29 Dec 2023, 6pm
After all that hiking today on an already-sprained ankle I felt what I needed was a good soak in the hotel's hot tub. Plus, it's no yet dinner hour- so many restaurants in the area are closed, including the one we want to eat at tonight. Unlike in the US ordinary restaurants aren't open throughout the day. Many serve lunch, close from 2-5pm or 2-6pm, then reopen for dinner. Others stay open from lunch until 5pm but then close for the day. And several only serve dinner, not opening at all until 5 or 6pm. On the one hand, this makes sense: people who run locally owned restaurants don't want to work all day. On the other hand, coming from the US, it's downright weird to see so much of service industry, well, not be serving.
Anyway, about that hot tub....
The hotel has a fairly large indoor pool as well as a very small outdoors pool. The hot tub is indoors. I do wish it were outdoors. Building the lap pool indoors, I understand. Even the summer weather here is not always hot- or even warm. Like, it's literally the middle of summer right now, equivalent to late June in the northern hemisphere, and it's barely 70° F (21° C) this afternoon. But the hot tub feels great even on cooler days, so it'd be nice to have it outdoors with the fresh air instead of indoors where we breathe chlorinated, mildewed air and hear the echoing screams of children apparently trying to kill each other in the pool.
After our aching muscles got a pounding from the jets in the water and our ear drums got a pounding from the kids in the pool, we returned to our room to dry off and dress for dinner.
And this is our room (photo above). Yeah, it's pretty messy right now. When I occasionally describe checking into a hotel with a line like, "We entered the room and immediately strewed our belongings everywhere," this is what I mean. 🤣
Okay, we're not usually this messy. Right now we've got a lot of different clothing, gear, and food laid out. And we're tired and achy, so leaving things like shoes and pants lying on the floor until tomorrow seems reasonable. And what's on the floor is mostly dirty clothes. We'll just kick them into a pile against the wall to straighten up. All our clean clothes are in the closet or in the one open suitcase. The other two suitcases, empty, are tucked away in the closet. So I guess what I'm saying is (a) this is more mess than normal and (b) as bad as it looks it could also be way worse. 🤣