What a day!

After 36 hours in Key West, we were done. To be frank, we’re not sure what all the Key West fuss is about. Sure, it’s a quaint little down that’s pleasant to walk through and note the island architecture before knocking down a few frozen cocktails at the Frozen Monkey and some oysters at Alonzo’s but when that’s over, what are you left with? Narrow streets. Shops full of tourist knick knacks and tropical shirts. A shocking lack of beaches. A “southernmost point” that isn’t even on the southernmost (privately owned) island of the keys. Hundreds of annoying folk on rented scooters breaking road rules.

To make navigating Key West easier, our (overpriced) resort provided offered free copies of a Duval Street magazine, with reviews of restaurants, shops and festivals. Unfortunately the September 2006 copy of this is wildly out of date. It seems that they don’t confirm business listings before going to print each month, leaving us driving all over town only to find that the “irresistible crepes” and “powerful cuban coffee” stores have changed opening hours, changed address or completely disappeared. Sigh. After trying, unsuccessfully, to track down two separate breakfast venues we simply wanted out.

We broke up the drive from Key West to Duck Key with a stop at Bahia Honda Key, which is known to have the best beaches in the Keys. Hmm. Not what any homegrown Queenslander would call a good beach, but still interesting to drop in and visit. From here we could see the remnants of one portion of the Overseas Railroad, built in 1912 to link the keys. It was destroyed in 1935 by a hurricane and replaced by the US1 highway.

We checked in to Hawk’s Cay Resort around 3:30 pm and had to go to a bit of fuss to be changed into the room that we had booked – a non-smoking one with a king-sized bed and a water view, instead of two queen sized beds and a view of some broken down golf carts (and a strong cigarette smell to boot). We settled for a room with the right view and bed, and a comparatively inoffensive wet carpet smell. The adult pool and resort lagoon kept us occupied for the rest of the afternoon. We had noticed earlier in the afternoon that the power was out, but assumed and hoped that it would be quickly fixed. Not so. It’s now 9:33 pm and the main resort buildings are still completely without power. The elevators are obviously out of order and the stairwells and hallways are lit by glowsticks. Instead of staying in our hot and dark room, the resort was kind enough to transfer us to a gorgeous two-storey, two bedroom villa with a full kitchen, deck and private pool.

The resort restaurants are also out of order, so as I write this, Gerrod is kindly out “hunting” for food. I would normally have joined him, but since the resort cannot configure new room keys, we had to be let into the villa with a master key and if we both leave, we have to go back to the resort and find a staff member to come back and help us get through the front door. What an… adventure!