Previously on this blog I left you and we were in a gravel lay by trying to hitch hike to Agnes Water or 1770. Danny (The Indian Vicar from Gladstone who had took a shine to Tom) had said he posted on the church's Facebook page that we needed a lift and said someone was going to Brisbane and would be there between half 9 and 10. It got to 10.15 and no one came and we were having no luck flagging anyone down either. The lay-by was poor and gravelly, so we decided to start walking to find a better one. Two minutes into our walk and a four wheel drive pulls over, he shouted out to us if we needed a lift, I nodded, said yes, gave him the thumbs up but he began to drive off. Not another one of those b******s I thought, I gave the international sign for what's happening mate and all of a sudden he began to reverse back to us. His name was Rob; he was 28 from Adelaide but was working in Gladstone and was also heading to Agnes Water so we hoped in. His four wheel drive was converted into a kind of camber so I got the sofa bed in the back. On the way he told us about his travels and hitch hiking across Europe, his construction job and tales of the deadly drop bears. We soon reached our location 1770, there was nothing, we eventually found backpackers and got checked in, Rob also checked in with us.

I did the essentials, dropped off my bags and had a number two. I was greeted from the toilet with a question I didn't expect. Do you want to go fishing? It's never been my greatest desire, but Rob had a spare rod so being all for new experiences I thought why not. We got some tackle and headed down to a spot the old fella on reception recommended. Rob spent an hour setting us all up, then again after I broke the line on my second cast off. It took me a while but eventually I got the hang of casting off and was shocking myself by quite enjoying it. Unfortunately nothing was biting and we caught nothing, but it has made me determined to at some point in my life catch at least one fish fishing however big, small, thin or fat. We headed back to the hostel and immediately got on it, we got talking to a couple of guys from Israel, Bar was particular impressive with his choice of music and was telling me back in Israel he liked to read NME, he was really jealous when I told him that I had been to see Kings Of Leon and that they were awesome. Soon we were greeted with female presence, a few Dutch girls, Danish girls, Swedish Girls and a German Girl; we also had the pleasure of some Cockneys who looked a bit like d*** heads. We ate a BBQ and played various drinking games such as ride the bus, spoons but with bottle tops, f*** the dealer and a new game I was taught called Hi Jack which was pretty fun. We all ended up really drunk, I fell asleep on the lazy boy in the lounge area. I did eventually wake up and make it to my own bed.

The next day we were supposed to go to some free lessons, they weren't really free as you had to hire the board but still it would have been an experience had we got up in time. Unfortunately we were too hung over, I was sure we would be able to surf at some other point on the East Coast trip. To fill our day we decided to walk around town, there wasn't much at all just one small shopping area so after a short time on the beach we headed to the museum but this was closed, instead we walked the discovery trail to a lookout over the beach. It was pretty nice; it would have been a good place to take a girl on a date for a picnic I thought. We got back to the hostel and was just chilling out when two Dutch girls invited us to play Monopoly, of course me being a huge lover of Monopoly and girls jumped at the chance. Tom agreed to play too. Everyone was buying things Willy Nilly, but I was wise enough to get the Mayfair and Park Lane set, the only properties I had. I put houses and hotels on and came out victorious. My Mum and Dad are probably thinking I was the banker and cheated, but it was one of the Dutch girls who was the banker so it was a clean win. I was happy.

Rob then come back and told us he was staying with his mate that night, we expressed our gratitude and exchanged pleasantries. It was now time to get the party started, not because Rob had gone. We finished the 3 beers let from the 48 the previous night, and then hit the goon. We met a German girl called Lisa, we taught her how to play s***head, she was pretty good I am pretty sure she hustled us and had played before. The German girl Regina from the previous night then came over and we began to play Hi Jack. We were running out of goon so I went to the bottle shop. Devastation occurred when I got to the bottle shop to find it had already closed. What were we to do? Earlier in the day someone had left two six packs of cider on the side of the table, they were there most of the day until the old guy put them in the staff fridge. We assumed that someone must have left the hostel and forgot to take these with them, so we put together a well worked plan and Tom, Lisa, Regina and myself acquired the cider from the fridge. The drinking games were back on and we were soon joined by Dave a cockney English fella, his mate and Dave's missus a Sheffield lass called Alice. The party was in full swing, people were getting pretty tipsy. We had a few cheeky games of horse racing and were then joined by an Irish guy called Carl and his French missus Marian. You probably know where this is going, yeah we got very drunk. Met two guys from West Bridgford in Nottingham and one of the guys even went to Tom's school. Horse racing then got serious as we started to play for money, I had nothing in my wallet so Tom subbed me $5, I cleaned up ending up with a $23 profit. It was a good night and got even better when we found out Carl and Marian were driving and were heading in our direction. They said they were going to the surfing lessons then hiring a scooter for the afternoon and they would leave possibly after that or at the latest 8am the next morning. This was fine with me; Tom was up for it too.

The next morning we woke up and missed the surf lessons again, it didn't really matter though as all the spaces were full. We chilled out and waited for word from Carl and Marian. It was now a waiting game to see what was happening. We played s***head, monopoly with a German guy, I played a bit of football manager and then Carl gave us the news we were waiting for. We would be leaving at about 7. We still had 5 hours left, so we went in search of Wi-Fi and got this at the information centre, we went to the museum which we missed the day before. It wasn't worth the $3 entry fee. The museum was only as big as a living room and didn't really have anything interesting. We treated ourselves to lunch Tom had Fish and Chips and I had a Chicken, Cheese and Avocado sandwich, then went back to the hostel where we taught a Dutch girl the rules of s***head. It wasn't long before Carl and Marian came back and we set off for Bundaberg!

Stay Safe and Take Care

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