Friday 18th May - Kingston

We weren't sure whether we were going to stay another night in Kingston, but decided we would.

Had a fairly leisurely  start to the day.  Went back to the chemist and picked up Bill's script.  He had seen the plane arriving earlier in the morning.  While there I bought a lovely little pelican to add to my collection.  Had a look at a few lovely shops, including a craft / gift shop where we bought a metal seahorse to hang on the wall, apparently it is a male seahorse - the females don't have the 'frilly' back.  She had females as well.
Then we went to a secondhand / antique shop.  I bought an original Noddy book complete with gollys, no. 24 (which I discovered I already had when I got home.)  It only cost me $5 and is in good condition.

Banzai Tyre-tread Depth Gauge

Bill bought himself a strange little gadget that he believes to be a tyre-tread gauge.  It is made of stainless steel and cost the grand sum of $8.  He also bought a brass plaque commemorating the maiden voyage of a ship named the "Ryoku Maru".  He did some research on the internet when we got home, and thinks he has found information about the ship.  Apparently the presentation of such plaques was / is common practice.  Strange thing is that the ship was apparently built in 1972, but this plaque commemorates a maiden voyage in 1976.  The only thing we can think of is that it was a maiden voyage for new owners, as it appears she had several owners over her lifetime.  She appears to still be in service.  Question?  How did a commemorative plaque from an Asian owned ship serving in American ports end up in an antique shop in Kingston????  We then went to a little gift shop in the old courthouse - lots of lovely things, which the owner apparently made many of.  I bought two little plaques to put away for Brittany for her birthday.

Larry the Big Lobster

Naturally we went to visit the Big Lobster (called Larry).  We decided to have some lunch there.  Can't remember what we had, but it was nice.  Just opposite the Big Lobster there were two quaint little cottages that looked just lovely.  Quite ramshackle, but oozing character.

Quaint cottages at Kingston

Customs House Robe

We also took a trip down to Robe, which had been our alternative place to stay.  I thought it sounded nice, and wanted to see it.  Well, we drove there, drove down the main street and turned around to go back!  I fancied an icecream, but we didn't see a single place where I could buy one.  All of the shops that looked interesting were shut.  Some interesting old buildings, many of which had descriptive plaques attached.  Trouble was, you could only read them if you actually walked the streets, and I wasn't up to that.

I finally got my icecream back at Scoops cafe in Kingston.  Very yummy it was too.
We had dinner from the take away at the caravan park.  I had a small hawaiian pizza, Bill had fish and chips.  Not bad for a caravan park office!