Chillin in Nanaimo

Jon had booked two jobs in Nanaimo for Wednesday and Friday and asked if I'd like to tag along for the three days. Since I hadn't been, I accepted and we booked in at the Painted Turtle Hostel for two nights.


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Horseshoe Bay ferry to Nanaimo

We got the 10.30am ferry over. Jon went straight to work and I went off to explore Nanaimo... it didn't take very long. Met up with Jon around 1pm and we went to the Acme Steak & Sushi for a $5 lasagna (no we didn't get steak or sushi) and a couple of pints and discussed the ins and outs of linking and syncronising all of our social media apps... riveting discussion!


Wednesday night we got some beers (40's) and played trivial pursuit for about 3 hours before heading out to the Palace Pub for some pool and some karaoke. Jon did Backstreet Boys and I did Frank... as usual. Then we transitioned into Club 2-4-1 next door for the first wet t-shirt competition of 2009. 5 contestants and about 12 onlookers. Epic!

The Painted Turtle Hostel kitchen

Thursday we had breakfast at a diner just around the corner then went back to the hostel for a 3 hour hangover nap. We asked Bruce (the hostel owner from near Batemans Bay) what we should do for the afternoon and he suggested getting the ferry over to Newcastle island and go for a walk around then get it over to Protection Island and get dinner at the Dinghy Dock floating pub. We spent about an hour on Newcastle (I think we were te only ones there) and then Greg picked us up and took us the 150m or so over to the Dinghy Dock pub. We had seafood pasta which was awesome!


An early dinner of seafood pasta at the Dinghy Dock Pub on Protection Island

Evening view from the pier at Dinghy Dock Pub on Protection Island

We went back to the hostel around 7.30 and had a few beers and played some foosball before heading back to the Palace for a few games of pool with some VERY drunk locals.

Friday morning we had breakfast at the same diner (can't remember the name) and then Jon went off to his other shoot. I went off exploring the town again (it wasn't any more exciting the second time) and then we met up at about 2.30 back at the hostel and went with a couple of Swiss girls from the hostel to the Old Country Market at Coombs. After that little adventure we headed back to catch the 7pm ferry back to the mainland.

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