Above: Catering for my Christmas Island stay.
I woke with some priorities in my mind. Accommodation on Christmas Island’s township was nearly booked out. I did one final check of the Virgin’s flight availability and decided that I should get on, on standby. With that, I rang the last remaining place in the township, the Mango Tree. They had one last room and managed to accept me.
I had been reluctant to stay with them. Weeks before, they had two rooms left. Due to my standby situation, I couldn’t book and expected them to sell out. So I asked for the number of their sister-hotel in Poon Saan which is not an ideal location.
The lady replied by email saying that she didn’t need to answer me because my preference is not to stay in Poon Saan. Would have been easier and shorter to type the phone number on email than write all that. I thought it was plain nasty as I had already explained my standby situation.
After a breakfast in town, I stocked up with some groceries to take with me to Christmas Island (in the same way as I did for Coco). I could spend a lot of money on bad or unhealthy food there. I had bought two each of canned beans, diced tomatoes and tuna at 80c each. Each meal would only cost me AUD1.20. Cheap, easy, tasty, filling and healthy. Also had some canned fruit, muesli, milk and muesli bars.
I met a crew friend for dinner in Northbridge at a Vietnamese place. He was coincidentally overnighting.