OFF TO AIRLIE BEACH
Had a bit of a lie in and a breakfast the next morning. One really thin girl had two bowls of cereal and four slices of raisin toast. Unbelievable. A lady from the hostel took us to the bus station by ourselves not with the other packers to make sure we got the bus, and we had a nice chat with her.
Our driver this time was no Alan, but he had a good bus driver name - Troy. A lot of people from our last bus were on this one in fact, but also some new, really ugly people. Like a strangely ugly bunch of individuals to have in one place. Once again, the DVD player didn't work. Sigh. But we entertained ourselves listening to pod casts ahead of our lunch stop at the BP garage, where we indulged in more sweets and crisps. The next leg of the journey, we had a music mix disco in our seats, complete with dancing, and listened to the Eurovision song contest cd. We had fun, nobody else on the bus did.
Got to Airlie Beach, which is a cool little village with nothing other than a bay, a lagoon, beach wear shops and bars. Grabbed a cab to our accommodation as it's a couple of K from town - we found a hotel room late availability for the same price as the backpackers hostel in town (everything is really overpriced here). Club Crocodile is a 1980s style resort, with a comedy pool, waterfall, hot tub etc. A volleyball area, a huge bar and a canteen style restaurant. It's ace and for the money we get to not have cockroaches and rowdy people, and instead have a fridge, tea making facilities, a proper comfy bed, tv and our own bathroom. RESULT.
Went for a wander around the town after we'd settled in, and Nik bumped into someone from the Reef in Cairns. Small world for such a big country!! W also went in a surf shop that had a big fat dog sat in the window that Nik gave a big cuddle to. We decided to book our WhitSundays boat trip, and managed to get one leaving tomorrow on a cheap standby deal - 2 days and 2 nights on a 50ft racing yacht. Awesome.
Rather than keep getting cabs about, we decided to grab an early dinner and seeing as he was craving pizza to the point of having dreams about it, Hannah caved and we shared one for dinner. Nik ate it in record speed. We then head back to the hotel and packed our bags and spent the evening watching TV. Masterchef Australia made us hungry.
Weekend in Airlie Beach - 3rd July
Got up and got our stuff ready for the boat trip, and then got a phone call telling us it had been cancelled due to low numbers. Gutted. However, they have put us on another boat (bigger and supposedly better) leaving Sunday now instead.
Got the bus into Airlie Beach and went for a WhitSundays Works breakfast as we were starving, full on eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, hash browns - yum. Then had to go to the sailing people to get the details for our new boat trip, which should definitely be happening apparently. It is a race winning yacht, bigger and the trip is pricier but we don't have to give any extra money so it should work out well - fingers crossed. And it should get us back in time to get to Brisbane on Tuesday night.
Had a wander around the shops and lagoon, and found a café with free wifi where we stopped to book bus tickets and plane tickets for the next leg (on Tuesday we will be covering off boat, bus, plane and car in one day). Booking travel and accomm is a faff and makes Hannah have the rage quite a lot.
Around lunchtime, we got the bus to the local shopping centre so we could go to Coles and get some food shopping. We got cereal bars, bananas, crackers and cheese dip and sweets as essential snack supplies for on the boat, and decided to have a cheap night in with the old favourite, the pot noodle, some crisps and donuts instead of splashing out on dinner.
Walked back to Club Croc, which we have since discovered has a cheap backpacker section dammit! Watched some TV, but then Hannah felt a bit off colour and had a sleep while Nik watched UFC on the computer. We wanted to go in the hot tub downstairs, but some sort of enormous group turned up and took over the entire pool area. Instead we chilled out in the room, watching TV and listening to the odd song from the literally TERRIBLE band playing in the bar downstairs….