But we ended up back on the beach!
The plan was to take a cable car to the Skywalk. Apparently it’s great – way way up in the mountains, lots of trees, wildlife, the whole bit. Got off to a bit of a dud start, when we failed to pass anywhere promising for breakfast en route, and instead found ourselves arriving at the rinky dink complex that surrounds the bottom end of the cable car – all ersatz ‘riviera’ architecture, in a sort of sub-Disneyland style – where the lack of options left us breakfasting on the most flavourless food on the planet – ‘cheese’ toasties, made with sliced white and stuffed with some kind of orange goo. After we’d finished, we found our way to the cable car, only to be told that it wasn’t running, because of high winds. So we needn’t have had the foul stuff after all.
Somewhat disheartened, we decided to take the opportunity to take a look at this end of the island. Which did little to improve our mood – a charmless landscape of big, dusty roads, punctuated with soulless resorts and one large tourist town. The only high spot was riding round the island’s airfield and being buzzed by a Hornet fighter, which passed over our heads at what couldn’t have been much more than 50 metres, with an explosion of noise.
Then it was just a ride back, and cut our losses with a return to Tanjung Rhu beach, where we spent a very pleasant afternoon lying in the sun, swimming in the sea, and generally enjoying not being at the other end of the island, before going out for our second really excellent fish supper.
I made a slightly vertiginous vid – you’ll need patience for the download, and I’d recommend sound for the waves – but it does give a feel for the place. And why it makes such a tempting plan B,