This morning once we’d packed, got breakfast and had a stretch seeing as we were both so stiff from the Muay Thai boxing, we headed into town to rent a quad bike.
When we’d learnt how to drive it, reverse it and park it, we headed off to find Mango Bay, a beautiful beach and Bay at the top of the island. After about half an hour driving on dirt tracks and bumpy roads we got to a sign for the Mango Bay viewpoint, and here we took a left turn, parked the quad bike and climbed up the rocks to see the magnificent view. Beneath the mango trees and Forrest you could see the small beach, some scuba boats and beneath all that… The ocean.
We got back on our quad bike and drove to the beach after this, thinking we knew the way we didn’t bother to look at the map and ended up at a completely different beach (after driving down so,me very steep rocky paths) without an actual beach and nothing around apart from a small broken down restaurant. As I’d been driving for quite some time and there was a flat rock perfect for sitting on, Juliet and I had our lunch stop here or packed sandwiches we’d bought that morning. Then we switched places and I became designated map reader while Julie drove… And we ended up and Mango Bay, FINALLY! Mango Bay is only accessible by foot so after parking our quad bike and walking down about a hundred steps we realised that we were at a quay about a five minute swim from the beach, but not actually on the beach.. (Why does this always happen to us!!) when we’d finally decided there was no way to the beach except via the water, we hailed a ‘water taxi’ a long boat with the words TAXI printed on it and sailed to the beach.
AT LAST we’re where we want to be and we can now relax a little before heading back later tonight and getting on the night ferry (not before we have a last meal of sushi though!)
The afternoon actually went swiftly down hill from there as Juliet started to feel very I’ll and so we went inside to the restaurant with aircon, but there was no aircon. Then it started to pour with rain and we had to get a taxi boat over to the other section of the bay where the quad bike was, but there was no taxi boat! So we started to rock climb then saw a boat pull in so ran to get it and after walking up about a million steps we got to the quad bike. I tried to drive back as fast as a could for Julie’s sake but slow enough that it wasn’t too rocky on the dirt track and that it was safe! We’re finally back at the hotel and after a dramatic adventurous day, someone moved our backpacks out of the rain so atleast they’re dry and we’re both fine!