Airlie Beach to Magnetic Island to Cairns

All donations welcome, haha!

It got to the point where I once again had to contemplate my next move. Having once again met a group of friends, found a sunny place to park my arse ny day and pour cheap drink down my neck by night, I really was happy as larry and it was hard to find the energy to leave. I'd found an existance where I was living on two-minute noodles in various flavours, Cole's Smartbuy (tesco value equivilent) cookies with the occassional late night McDonald's cheeseburger. However it wasn't probably wise to continue in this fashion as I was in danger of becoming yet another traveller on the Work and Travel Visa, that neither works nor travels... Surprisingly this phenomenon seems to exist all over Australia. Time and time again I meet people here that have been in Australia six, eightt months or more and have been to remarkably few places, yet they often have earnt next to no money. They think nothing of spending $100+ on a night out, but consider $94 for the ferry to Magnetic Island, 2 night accommodation and 2 meals a rip off. So they remain stuck where they are, still poor, going nowhere. Hardly the travelling life.

I, on the other hand, have embraced poverty and went to the travel agents and booked more trips. Yes my friends, stupidity comes in many forms...

Now that I had a date for leaving I decided to invest in camera number 3. Hoping I'd fare better with a cheap one, I opted for an Olympus one that which was the cheapes one with a lithium battery from the Aussie equivilent of Curry's - Tandy. Obviously karma was not on my side as it broke within four days, the day before I was due to leave Airlie Beach, on a public holiday (the Queen's birthday no less, why don't we get a day off at home?). Now a public holiday at home would mean Sunday opening times right, but here every lucky b***** gets a day off and the world grinds to a holt. I was very annoyed as I would have no chance to take the stupid thing back to the store before I left. In the end I managed to change my bus and trips to spend and extra rainy day in Airlie Beach.

Meanwhile in Room 24 of Magnums, drama was underway. Our Aussie friend Emma and some of the other girls took some herbal pills called 'Empathy' from the store 'Happy High Herbs'. Smugly I stayed in bed and read (i.e. I felt like death from the night before). When I woke in the morning I saw Emma's bed was empty and then was told that last night she was taken to hospital in an ambulance as she had passed out in pain. It later unfolded that she had nearly had a stroke, her blood pressure had got so high from taking those pills. Tsk tsk. To make matters worse, her dad had spent $1000 on a flight up from the Sunshine Coast to collect her. So that was the end of Emma's holiday, let it be a lesson to you all children!

My last day in Airlie was spent exchanging camera number 3 for camera number 4 ('I've never seen it do this before' said the camera man. Yeah right), watching Harry Potter 6 on Lana's laptop and munching on cheese and biscuits. That night as it was my last night, I invested a whole $5 on goon and we annoyed our new room mates by getting raucous until 12, when we moved to Mama Africa, danced away for a few more hours before introducing Andrea to Australia's famous meat pies. Yum. Unfortunately I didn't feel spo sweet the next day when I awoke after about 4 hours sleep and boarded my bus to Townsville. Four hours and ten minutes after we departed, the bus pulled in. The next puzzle was to figure out how exactly to get to Magnetic Island. Armed with my new Canadian friend Lisa, whom I had met on the bus (have discovered am chameleon that would talk to a tree if there was no one else), we hailed a taxi for the ferry port, because lets face it walking with a backpack further than 200m isn't fun. A taxi ride, a ferry ride and a bus ride later we arrived at Base Backpackers on Magnetic Island.

I had come to Magnetic Island (or Maggie as its known to the Aussies, I'm surprised they don't call it Mago...) purely because I'd been shown pics by a friend of her holding lizards, a saltwater crocodile (no joke) and a koala at what has become known as the 'extreme petting zoo'. Its also the place where you can hire pink Barbie cars with no doors and roof and pretend you're really cool. It soon became apparent that I had neither the funds for crocodile holding or barbie car posing... So I instead opted for the backpacker freebie, a walk. Despite my fatigue the previous night, I was immediately thrust into the midst of things as Base was hosting a gender bender party. Everyone that dressed up in the opposite sex's clothes got one hour of a free goon punch. Ah theres that word again - free. Lisa and I drew on our best mascara moustaches, I wore my room mates checkered shirt and we joined the throng of people in the bar. After the free booze was over we had to parade ourselves down the catwalk and generally embarass ourselves. SOme of the boys got way too into wearing a dress, crossing their legs and giving Victoria Beckham-style pouts. After the fashion parade madness died down I escaped to bed mercifully.

After my free bacon and eggs the next morning (yum yum), Lisa and I joined about 5000 other backpackers on the island bus for the 2 hour Fort's Walk. I'm really not surprised that the bus driver got mightily pissed off with the invaders constant questions and large notes. However, they couldn't keep going without us! The walk was pretty hard going in the heat, but the views were spectacular and we got to see another wild koala!! That evening , hoping to repeat my Melbourne Neighbours Night success, Lisa and I participated in the quiz, only to come fourth, damn. Despite the event organiser's attempts to get everyone up on the tables dancing, only Lisa and I obliged and I was stone cold sober, too poor to afford the extortinate drink prices (awwwww).

I really wanted to stay longer in Magnetic Island as the weather was so beautiful and the place so peaceful, but Cairns and this dreadful job business were beckoning me forth. So I packed up my crap the next morning and prepared for the 8 hour journey of bus, ferry, bus and another bus. Whilst waiting at Townsville's bus station, I unexpectedly ran into Niall, who I had known in Sydney. Its really quite funny how despite being such an enormous country, you run into the same people proving it is actually such a small world.

I arrived in Cairns at 7.30pm and was picked up in the ancient minibus and taken to my hostel, Woodduck. Having stayed in G'day in Sydney and Coffee Palace in Melbourne, I was completing the trio of hostels owned by the same company, in which I had had such an enjoyable time. Certainly this hostel had the same premice as the prvious two, with its reputation for bedbugs, a distinct lack of space and rumours that you would catch chlamydia if you dared to enter the pool.. It was hoever a very small hostel with only 8 rooms, it had ensuite dorms and teh added benefit of being only $15 a night. The hostel was also being managed by Simon, the manager of Coffee Palace, so it was nice to be around familiar faces. I was reunited with Anna and Grit and introduced to their friends, thus making yet another friendship group instantly.

My first day in Cairns was spent orientating myself, eating yummy $3 sushi, handing out a couple of CVs and frolicking in the pool (I risked catching the STI). My plan of attack on the job front was to try Tribal Travel to continue the job I had previously had in Airlie Beach, before it shut down and they forgot to tell me... I went in and spoke to the manager Kathy and before I knew it I was employed once more. It was that easy. I worked five and a half hours that day and average on about 30 hours a week. The only issue was that I was to be paid in vouchers and to act as skivvy whilst I was still training and no end date was given to the training. Still I could spend the vouchers on my trip to Fiji and sample some more of Cairns' wacky trips. I befriended a fellow employee, a Swedish girl Boel and she joined Grit, Anna, Helena and I on our girly night to the cinema where we watched 'Sex and the City 2'. The following day, me being the muppet that I am, I discovered that I had left my purse in the cinema (it must have fallen out whilst I was riffling through it for my timtams). Thankfully the purse and I were reunited, but I then discovered over $150 in cash had been pilfered from it. I filed a report with the police and luckily discovered that I can claim on my insurance for it. That was $150 I couldn't afford to lose.

In the evening, the gang (anna, me, Grit, Helena, Boel, Andy, Victor and Mark) headed to Travel Bugs (a rival travel agency) for a free evening they were hosting involving goon and pizza. I consumed far too much alochol and retired to bed (after losing everyone, my way and my key) even before England won their match against Slovenia (which show at very inconvenient times in the middle of the night here!)